Went to the Symphony and a fight broke out....

Wow! I remember when I was about 15 I went to a symphony orchestra and couldn't believe how stuffy it was. At that time I felt like I couldn't breathe without someone shushing me. I actually thought I was being really quite.

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Back in the 19th Century there was often a lot of commotion at classical music concerts. There were partisans for one composer or another (the great Brahms vs. Wagner battles were famous between each others supporters) and there would be booing at concerts with the rival's music. Famously at French Operas it was required to have a ballet featuring female dancers in the second act of the opera. First, it employed the cast of ballet dancers who had a second job earlier in the opera. During the first act, the ballet dancers would meet with their male admirers who would be skipping attending the first act for dinner and their amourous trysts. Then after the intermission, the admirers would take their seats for the second act to see their favorites dancing in the ballet.

Wagner famously had written his opera Tannhauser for German audiences with no ballet. However, for the Paris version, he was forced to write a ballet. Because of the plot line the ballet took place at the beginning of the opera, the famous Venusberg scene, not in the second act. This infuriated the wealthy men who were forced to watch the first act and the ballet, rather having their meetings with the ballet dancers. It was said they hired a bunch of hooligans who yelled out cat calls and blew whistles and made other disruptions to the opera. Wiki gives a slightly sanitized version of the story (see Tannhauser Paris Version.) Wagner was forced to withdraw the opera from Paris.

Larry
 
Noisy people and classical live concerts...

To many people seem to visit concerts as a social event and not because they love music.

I remember visiting beethoven's Fidelio in the Brucknerhaus, Linz. This is one of the most difficult operas to perform for musicians. It was even more difficult because the main solist had a bit of a cold and her voice was not 100%. So the conductor had a hard time, but it worked well.

Then, on one the most silent and moving moment (here) in the opera a mobile rang. And instead of shutting it down fast, the old lady started talking "helo, i'm in the opera.." etc.

So the conductor Dennis Russell Davies indead STOPPED THE ORCESTRA, AND TURNED AND LOOKED TO HER with an angry face, if he could kill her.

She then stopped talking and Russell went on.

regards,

Andy
 
Bad manners really seem to be taking over. My wife and I were just at the Metropolitan Opera to see Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West. Jonas Kaufmann, the world’s most famous tenor, was singing but clearly had a cold. People in the audience were actually making cat calls and yelling that they wanted their money back. Unbelievable. Never seen anything like it.

Ken
 
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