La Scala concert is halted by ringing phone
NewsFrom a correspondent, special to slippedisc.com:
This evening during the second repeat of the concert of Verdi’s Choruses and Symphonies conducted by Riccardo Chailly a mobile phone rang insistently at the moment of greatest emotion, the chorus Patria oppressa from Macbeth.
The maestro interrupted the performance and turned to the heckler, chilling him: ‘Go ahead and answer, we’ll continue later’ and then to the audience: ‘you see, friends, there are many of us on this great Verdi journey with the orchestra and choir of La Scala, but this isn’t all because we are making a recording for Decca in London so there will be many more of us. This is a big deal. ‘Patria oppressa’ with the ‘obstinato’ of the mobile phone is just not possible’. T
Then, after a long applause from the audience, he resumed the performance.
Bravo. This is the easiest thing to prevent. All the audience has to do is to pay attention to the ubiquitous preperformance announcement.
I’m not a big fan of shaming members of the audience. It could be seen as biting the hand that feeds one.
Nevertheless, anyone ignoring this elementary courtesy deserves it.
What particularly annoys me is that people not switching mobile phones to silent or even off is nothing new. It has been going on now for two decades or more. And yet there are still extremely selfish people who attend performances and other events where silence is essential for everyone’s enjoyment and the participants’ concentration. A conductor really has no alternative but to stop the performance. Ushers attempting to expel those who have no regard for others by not switching off phones will just create a greater disruption. But if the culprits can just be identified, they could be approached after the end and given some sanction, although barring a banning from future performances I am not sure what that would be.
I recall a discussion some years ago about blocking mobile phone signals from venues like concert halls. To me that would be the ideal. I suppose the concern is that if a member of the audience had to be contacted because of some emergency, that would not be possible. But what is the difference between that and a phone being switched off? None that I can work out.
Times have certainly changed at La Scala. Hector Berlioz once attended a performance there of Donizetti’s ‘L’elisir d’amore’, which he described in the following terms: “People were talking in normal voices with their backs to the stage. The singers, undeterred, gesticulated and yelled their lungs out in the strictest spirit of rivalry. At least I presumed they did from their wide-open mouths, but the noise of the audience was such that no sound penetrated except the bass drum. People were gambling and eating supper in their boxes. And so, perceiving that it was useless to expect to hear anything of the score, which was new to me, I left.”
And that was not uncommon in those days.
Would hate to be the person who forgets to do it in spite of all announcements . And don’t forget to turn off all your alarms because they will go off even if your phone is powered off.
Double check. But selfish people just don’t care. ROH a while ago, and three of a party of four kept large-screen phones on throughout final act. Usher had left after interval,
several members of the audience intervened, but this lot just didn’t care.
People do not care. They use the phone
At weddings and funerals.
This is not correct. If your phone is completely powered off nothing programmed in to it will make any noise. This will only happen if it’s set to silent mode.
They allow Netrebko’s screeching in the hall, so what’s a little ringing cell phone?
Presumably people bought tickets for Netrebko.
If you have the chance to see in concert Chailly you check 5 times that you have switch off you cellphone.
Recipients of the NO BELL prize must have always remembered that one must switch off one’s phone, thus setting a good example to us all.
The mobile phone owner may have been sponsored by Riccardo Muti.
Congratulations!
Maybe, ask the Audience to make sure all mobile phones are switched off just before the curtain goes up.
This is routinely requested all over the world. If it makes a difference, I don’t want to think what it is.
In France, at the beginning of a performance, people are asked “not to forget to turn their phones ON at the end of the concert”.
It’s the indirect approach which somehow tops all other methods…
There but for the grace of God, go I. My phone did ring in the middle of ‘l was Glad’ recently, but God’s grace ensured that it was during a fortissimo… Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa…
There should be a giant vacuum cleaner hose that hovers over audiences. And when it hears someone’s cell go off it should zoom in on the offender, suck him in and deposit him in an alley outside the building.
Back on March 15, several mobile phones broadcast an Amber Alert simultaneously – and quite loudly — during an encore at Elīna Garanča’s vocal recital at Broad Stage in Santa Monica, California. An Amber Alert sounds like a building fire alarm, which led me to wonder whether evacuation was warranted. However, the sound ended within a few seconds when the errant phones were turned off. In the meantime, Ms. Garanča continued her encore to its completion.
Reminds me of that NYP Mahler 9 with Gilbert where a phone rang in the last movement and Gilbert stopped the performance.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/nyregion/ringing-finally-stopped-but-concertgoers-alarm-persists.html
And seen something similar with PSO and Nezet just before he wanted to start and the audience didn’t calm down. He then sat on the edge of the conductors podium and waited…
Not nice but let’s not get overboard with the blame game. Assuming the house was sold out, it’s just one person in 2000. And how many performances are free of cell phone disturbances? So really it’s just one person in many thousands. In this day and age of grotesque entitlement, this is actually way _above_ average mindfulness and respect.
Respectless,uneducated behaviour.Period…one of those damm things rang at a funeral of a close friend of mine a few weeks ago.
So sorry for your loss… by the way, did the disturbance wake the dearly departed?
I was recently at a concert where a mobile went off just before the start of the next movement. The conductor dropped his arms and we all waited an interminable length of time until a member of the orchestra dived into her handbag and turned it off. At least she didn’t answer it.
I’ve noticed some patrons are completely focused on their mobile devices at the exact time the announcement to turn off those devices is underway.
The recent Khatia Buniatishvili recital in London was plagued by mobile phones ringing, watches beeping, people taking photos and then of course there was the infamous heckler … Not a great night.