Tenor stops mid-concert in Birmingham to stop phone snappers
OrchestrasThe tenor Ian Bostridge shocked Symphony Hall Birmingham last night by stopping after the third song in Britten’s Les Illuminations to denounce the CBSO’s new audience rules, which read:
“We are very happy for you to take photographs and short video clips at our concerts, but please refrain from recording the whole performance.”
Bostridge, a thoughtful, courteous man, stepped forward and – clearly fuming – requested that audience members turn off their phone cameras. He said taking photographs was ‘extremely distracting’ for a performer.
The relaxation of concert etiquette has been a major reform brought in by the CBSO’s chief executive, Emma Stenning.
Regular audience members joined Bostridge in their dismay at last night’s disuptions. Several applauded Bostridge’s announcement. Others have written to slippedisc.com.
One attender writes: ‘It strikes me as extraordinary that Ms Stenning, the CEO, comes from a theatre background, and yet does not seem to know that phone cameras etc are the bane of actors’ lives. Why might she assume that musicians are different?
‘I would not be at all surprised if Mr Bostridge never returns to Symphony Hall. Bravo him for standing up on this one. But one cannot be surprised at this absurd situation if the CBSO management positively encourage this. Audiences are now getting mixed messages… Surely it would have been better to have left it as things were. It is the CBSO management who have caused this upset. Poor leadership here.’
Stenning was in the audience last night, looking uncomfortable.
Review here.
Good for him! I remember better days when security personnel firmly escorted people from concert halls for taking photos or recording.
Indeed. It should be a chief executive’s job to keep the phones OUT of the hall.
Renee Fleming was chill about it, and, thanks to a phone, one of her best performances is preserved on youtube.
The ART-ist rage is out of date and self-defeating.
“Out of date”, maybe. But unlicensed filming and distribution of copyright material (such as the works in the first half of this concert) is actually illegal. Possibly the law does indeed need to “chill”. But it is, nonetheless, the law, and it is there to protect the intellectual property and livelihood of creative artists.
We musicians prefer not having phones or cameras with FLASHES (MANY OCCASIONS I have had some one photo or video with light in my face….) so it’s not about rage, it is about offering a wonderful performace……..
How about tweeting during sex? Should the partner be relaxed about it? (Hopefully this comment doesn’t violate SD guidelines.)
On the contrary. We should refer it to Dear Alma.
I think Ms Stenning’s advice should apply in this context, too: ““We are very happy for you to take photographs and short video clips…, but please refrain from recording the whole performance.”
Though maybe STD guidelines.
Yeah, it’s really fun to watch a bunch of mouth breathers pull out their phones at concerts. You truly are addicts.
Good for him! – though bad indeed that his gesture was necessary. Birmingham and the arts seem not to be doing so well of late, one way and another…
Time for the CBSO Board to step in?
It’s the new CEO and the board who are causing all these problems. They should all resign.
That the CBSO board appointed her in the first place suggests they aren’t the best judges…
I remain genuinely baffled by the appointment.
H’mm, why – after years of expert and strong-willed leadership – would a board appoint a hugely inexperienced CEO who would necessarily depend upon them in all respects? Beats me…
Well it comes to something when a performer has to tell an audience how to behave. Birmingham you should know better!
It’s not the audience. The new CEO is encouraging it by printing in the programme that audience can take photos and videos during the performance! Gormless stupidity springs to mind.
at least the audience are awake. i have been to concerts
when people are snoring
That message was there way before the CEO.
Even so – she is still CEO and the buck stops with the CEO. Shes been in post long enough to sort.
Somebody needs to!!!
Nice one, Ian. Outrageous that this intervention was even necessary. I would have thought that an audience that came to hear an outstanding soloist in Britten’s masterpiece rather than a performance of The Four Seasons or the 1812 Overture would be refined enough to behave themselves.
As for the ‘relaxation of concert etiquette’ by the CEO, could we see the full policy please – how was this stated? Did it reach JEG? If so, this might exonerate him. ‘Only following orders, old chap’.
I seem to recollect that some years ago the boot was on the other foot, when Nigel Kennedy would vent streams of ersatz cockney abuse at the end of a public performance and virtually vomit over the audience. Seems that he has melted into well-earned obscurity these days. Could it be that there is something faintly ridiculous about a punk violinist who collects an old-age pension?
It’s printed in the programme that anyone can take photos and videos during the performance. It’s one of the daft ideas of the new CEO!!!!
CEO!! Maybe,but,no true music lover
why did his mother
never send him to
elocution lessons.
What may I ask,what has the OAP. To do with his. Wonderful musicianship. Hey. Get real and listen to real music making !!
BRAVO! No doubt ACE wholeheartedly approve of this pathetic virtue signalling that will have at least the first objective of their diversity and inclusively policy. To alienate the old, stale, audience but whether the second, to replace us with an audience that maybe does not exist will be harder to achieve than just implementing a dumbing down philistinism has yet to be seen.
I’m with Ian Bostridge on this one, it’s not only distracting for performers but also for those of us sitting behind mobile phone users, with their illuminated screens.
I should point out that not all the phone users last night were filming: some were following the translation in the programme notes, which are available to download from the CBSO. Perhaps last night’s concert would have been a candidate for the digital supertitles display?
I’m pleased to report that the issue in no way affected the sublime reading of Les Illuminations from Ian Bostridge (from this concertgoers’ perspective at least) and the CBSO strings sounded gorgeous playing that amazing, inventive score.
I should also say that I don’t, for one minute, doubt that Emma Stenning has the best intentions for experimenting with ways to draw new people to the concerts. Last night’s concert was very poorly attended: if all CBSO concerts attracted such a poor crowd, they wouldn’t be around for much longer. At a public meeting held last month she admitted that they had tried too many things too quickly with the Don Quixote/Eroica concert and would proceed with more advanced warning and maybe take smaller steps. She is getting a lot of stick at the moment but I think she is listening, and it is very laudable to be attempting to share this wonderful art form with a wider audience whilst ensuring the survival of the CBSO.
Oh, no, not surtitles or phones for words! So distracting. Print them off at home, read them, and then listen to the concert. Ian Bostridge, like him or not, has an ability to pronounce his words well as he sings. Awful for singers to have an audience looking elsewhere to read words and miss the whole point of performing. Having phones on in particular for anything in a concert is SO distracting for the audience. So bright like search lights.
The “not all the phone users last night were filming” is no mitigation at all. You should NEVER be using a mobile telephone for ANY purpose during a concert. The visual distraction alone (not to mention the risk of aural distraction) inflicted on performers AND fellow audience members is unacceptable. Programme notes are for reading before or after the concert (or during the interval). Libretto and translations are to be read on paper or not at all (the light pollution of any electronic device is unacceptable).
I spoke to someone before a funeral this morning about mobile phones and needing to switch them off or to ‘silent’ mode in certain circumstances. She regretted she had to keep her phone on to monitor her new Insulin pump.
The issue isn’t whether to keep mobile phones on. It’s whether to use them to record a performance. I believe that a live performance should not be recorded. Even in the best of circumstances (including an artist who agrees to it), a recording of a live performance is a bad idea. I’ve been to many performances where tempo, phrasing, volume were optimised for a professional recording, not for the live listeners, which is unfair on the live audience. In the case of amateur mobile phone recordings, the end result is even worse. Live concerts should be an opportunity for those present to live the moment.
Actually, you don’t need to use your phone – you can just use the pump (and/or other external receiver/reader). Though that is a bit more hassle. Either way, you can silence the alarms. (I’m a pump user.)
Probably poorly attended because regulars heard that filming and photography during the performance was going to be allowed. They must have travelled to Ian Bostridge’s concert at Wigmore Hall in January or are planning to attend his recital in May instead. Wigmore Hall management are strict about banning filming of the performing, and also offer free paper copies of lyrics, with instructions not to flick the page over until the (correct) song has ended. Wigmore Hall concerts are frequently sold out.
The CBSO should not be encouraging this kind of behaviour, distracting to the performer and to most of the audience.
Good old Ian! This policy is a dreadful idea, how distracting, how rude!
Surely you mean *fewer* illuminations Norman! Seriously though this seems to be an industry wide trend. In Amsterdam members of the the audience at the Dutch National Opera are requested to put their phones on silent and it is pointed out that glaring screens can be disturbing to other members of the audience. As a full time member of the chorus, it irks me every time I hear the announcement. I’m not sure when the policy changed , or why.
I was there last night.
It was appalling that Ian Bostridge had to do this but I congratulate him on doing it. The new management at the CBSO hasn’t got a clue and are pi**ing hundreds of regulars off.
If they can’t come to their senses then they should resign.
How do you stop those ignorant people using their phones during a performance – even when they’re asked not to?
Collect them at the door like checking your hat and coat.
You might try the solution I adopted towards one particularly egregious concert sinner: I rolled up my program and hit him over the head with it! Admittedly extreme, but he quit.
I understand that, after he’d asked them not, to the audience did switch off their phones. Before that they’d been told That because
This is the latest example of the fallout from Emma Stenning’s free-for-all policy, and would have been unthinkable during the tenure of the great CEOs I worked with. Yes, perhaps she is listening to criticisms, but even the act of backtracking is indicative of what was a folly in the first place, rushing out a vision for the future before consulting with those of us with a little experience. She may well end up depleting the CBSO audience instead of replenishing it.
Won’t be long before they ask people to wave their ‘phone-torches’ and sing along to ‘Sweet Caroline’??
To be fair I’d actually really enjoy a Sweet Caroline symphony. Shock horror, I also quite like Mahler.
I’m pleased a performers has actually addressed this issue there
This has been escalating for sometime I attended the cbso Damnation of Faust last Saturday and phones were in evidence
Strange though the ushers were quick to spring into action on Tues for Dresden Philharmonics concert
It’s one of the only halls I know where no announcements are made concerning phones etc
Maybe at last something maybe done
As one of the comments said I Bostridge may well choose not to appear there again
Second time we’ve heard this recently (“Some damned cause for joy in Brum” 14th April, first comment: “…..vast number of unsold seats”).
What is going on? The economy, programming, lack of publicity/promotion, traditional audience no longer welcome, demographic changes, or a perfect storm? Even in the present climate I would have expected Symphony Hall do be doing better than this.
This is serious.
The underlying problem with all of this is that the audiences are becoming smaller and I think that’s because there is no music education in the schools anymore. Audiences have to be grown. Don’t plan those seeds in their youth and they will not go to those concerts in their adulthood. I worked with kids for a long time and symphonic music, classical music is very hard for them because they don’t understand the underlying structures and they don’t hear how the music works; they just hear noise.
Couldn’t agree more with Ian Bostridge. Why are people who plainly don’t understand performers’ feelings being appointed to such positions?
It’s 2024: the performing arts is more “user-friendly,” more “audience-forward.” That’s the remit now.
I am aghast that CBSO should invite an audience to behave in a way that is disrespectful to both performers and fellow audience. Shame pnthem
And in one foul swoop everyone under the age of 40 is alienated. Shortform video shared online is the gateway to your next generation of audience- embrace it or accept the ongoing death of classical music as inevitable.
Your generalisation is ridiculous. And it’s “in one fell swoop”…
Or is that one swell p**p?
As a 29 year old who came from rock music to falling in love with this music as a teenager, and whose favourite hall is Birmingham… I don’t think this is quite right.
I do believe short form can be a great means to educate and excite newcomers (I myself have been doing content marketing and music education on YouTube for a decade to a now-very-large audience, and there is evidence that it works as part of a larger marketing strategy), but that content should be made in-house, not by people getting sh*tty recordings on their phone from the middle of the stalls, or balcony, or wherever, without the performers’ consent to publish it wherever they like.
Ridiculous. If you think I would EVER go to a concert where people are holding up their cameras to film stuff, you’re nuts. It’s not a rock concert.
Is everyone under 40 an insensitive clod?
The people I feel very sad and sorry for in all this are the wonderful musicians of this magnificent orchestra: the CBSO. It is embarrassing and distracting for them, and is not of their making. I spent 40 years directing plays, and trying to maintain audience standards of behaviour – especially since the onset of mobile phones. So it is utterly brainless of the CBSO management actively to allow and cause such unpleasantness and friction. It seems to show a lack of basic intelligence. It is naive to ask people to “dim the brightness” on their phones. At La Damnation de Faust last Saturday a woman was filming, two rows in front of me: it spoilt a whole section of the piece for me and for others. If the CEO IS listening – I don’t see much sign of it. Of course she must do all in her power to encourage and maintain audiences – that is part of her job. But the blunders so far are embarrassing to this great orchestra. What must visitors (rather than “regulars”) have thought? Can one imagine this happening in the Vienna Musikverein? Shame on the management – take this offensive and divisive paragraph out of the programmes. It is that simple.
Why have a management that doesn’t appreciate the first thing about classical performance to out on a classical concert and then abuse the position of the performer and sabotage the quality of his/her artistry.
Fury
Phone cameras are annoying to the audience just because of the lit screen we can all see, never mind a distraction to the performer. But I am reminded of Adele telling people at a concert something like: “You don’t have to watch me on video; I’m actually HERE.”
Recording and/or taking pictures of performing artists is not merely a distraction — it’s a sign of profound disrespect. Respect, according to Heidegger, is simply the ability to be fully present, to fully attend any given thing in the present moment. Disrespect, accordingly, would be the opposite — being somehow absent from the actual experience taking place. And that’s precisely what seems to be encouraged by this management, in a cheap and opportunistic attempt to relax basic rules of concert etiquette, all in a misguided effort to attract new audiences. I seem to recall a similar attempt a few years ago now by a major orchestra to dedicate a “tweet seats” section in the concert hall to allow the audience to tweet during the performance. One wonders what kind of rewarding concert experience one can truly have when tweeting inane comments on social media during a Bruckner symphony to people who probably won’t even read them. Not only is this the height of vacuousness, but more importantly it betrays a fundamental inability to be fully present — to be constantly engaging in a futile attempt to continually seek self-renewing levels of dopamine through multi-tasking, but in the end only becoming unable to appreciate any single thing. There’s a very good reason why intelligibility is lost when two pieces of music are played at the same time, or when two speeches are being delivered simultaneously. That’s not merely because there is a limit to what human cognition can do, but because each thing commands its own level of attention in order to be truly appreciated — its own level of respect, one that does not admit of being diluted with something else. We are experiencing a world-wide crisis of attention, which might actually be one of the key reasons why classical music audiences are dwindling. And it is a very sad day indeed when orchestra managements make a concerted decision (pun intended) to contribute to such crisis by encouraging audiences to seek external distractions from the very event they allegedly came to experience. Moreover, it is a sheer insult to an artist of Mr. Bostridge’s stature, as well as an insult to the very audiences that make the commitment to attend the performance and who, rightfully, expect the basic decency to be able to fully enjoy the performance without having to contend with the incessant glare of smartphones recording archives that will paradoxically end up in a computer’s trash can.
All of you can talk about disrespect all you want, but the recording of live concerts without specific authorization is ILLEGAL and artists are legally shielded from that abuse by Intellectual Property protections. Disrespect is rampant and horrific, but these people are additionally engaging in criminal activity! A performance venue does not have the right to violate that protection without the permission of the performer(s).
Bravo, Bostridge! Photo-ops are for Philistines. True music appreciation requires the listener to be unobtrusive, listening with respect and humility. You do not need to ‘capture’ your personal memento on camera. The artists performing onstage are not immune to distractions, and those who dare to distract them are mindless buffoons.
Although it was a small audience there were quite a few young people in it, and the entitled public scolding by the soloist was such a turn off after the conductor had just made everyone feel so welcome in his speech. Programme notes on phones are not new and I did not witness any filming.
What an idiotic comment.
What next? Hand out packets of crisps and a bottle of fizzy drink to concertgoers as they enter the hall? Whoever wrote the new “audience rules” clearly has no idea what classical music concerts are about and presumably haven’t ever been to one! One evening at the Royal Opera House during a particularly quiet part of the music I had to invite the hooray Henrietta in front of me TWICE to “please stop filing your nails”!
Maybe they will allow people to smoke dope or whatever?
As one who sings in Bham Town Hall and Symphony Hall regularly and also attends many concerts I agree that any use of phones during performances is a distracting pain. I wonder, though, if this is harder to get across to audiences when players and singers increasingly use iPads instead of sheet music?
I can just about see the point you are trying to make, but i-pads are totally private, and not an intrusion. Mind you, I think they are a technical disaster waiting to happen, as I have witnessed when two pages have been turned at once!
I agree that iPads can often be kept private by performers, but I have been at candlelit concerts where the glare from the screens was quite off-putting, especially when performers are in a circle and some of the screens face the audience.
Oh, and paper sheets can’t have two pages turned at once?!
Next, audience members will be told they can play some other music on their phones until they hear something they like in the performance at the time.
Were he still alive, Rostropovich would have refused to perform with the ridiculous Birmingham policy in place. He once stopped a recital mid-performance when he noticed a microphone above the stage. It had to be taken down before he would continue.
I have also been at a recent Krystian Zimerman concerto where it was announced no less that three times that the use of any recording devices including phones and iPads was absolutely forbidden. This was in a concert hall where such use is sometimes not uncommon. But when informed the pianist would walk offstage if anyone was seen using a recording device, standing at the back of the stalls area I noticed everyone kept their devices off.
Interestingly all the comments seem to be from men, is there a reason for this?
The new CEO of the CBSO appears to be a disaster and is alienating her loyal audience.
Well, I’m not a man, and I think the Emma Stenning policy is rubbish. I am very used to attending concerts where the pre-curtain announcement includes to turn off all telephones. I have never seen it disobeyed.
When I lived in Hong Kong,the announcements included turning off watches, as many Hong Kongers apparently used watches that beep the hour. This was in the late 80s and early 90s — the first time I heard the caution about phones. (Also the first place I saw widespread use of cell phones). And I never saw that disobeyed either.
But Adele, as quoted above, has it nailed — the whole root of the problem. Interact with the living, not the image, is a message that appears to have been lost.
No; a good number protesting against filming, photo taking or digital devices lit up during performances are women.
I have to say, as a musician, there’s nothing more irritating while trying to do your JOB than someone shining their phone’s light in your face while you’re trying to perform. Phones and recording equipment should be banned from concerts unless it has been agreed beforehand and the musicians are getting a recording fee.
Awful idea to allow photos or even videos during a concert. Plus surely this affects copywrite AND artists’ fees. Totally mad. Theatres often allow photos at the curtain call ut even that is distracting.
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned in these comments is the fact that the Britten work is still in copyright, so it would be illegal for anyone to post a video online!
Good for him.
When house lights are low, the screen is like a flashlight.
Don’t people have courtesy to pay attention? Can’t people pay attention for the duration of a performance? Are people unable to experience anything without recording it? It’s like mass aphasia.
Bowstring is not the first. There was Krystian Zimmerman in LA a few years ago.
I applaud Ian Bostridge wholeheartedly for having the courage to call out this philistine practice publicly.
I sit regularly in the Upper Slips at the Royal Opera House and it is so distracting when a mobile phone lights up in the stalls, because of an incoming call, even if the phone is on silent.
Full credit to the Royal Opera House, whose ushers wage an active campaign against phone usage during the performance, not least because filmed extracts sometimes appear on social media or you tube, regardless of performing rights or performers’ contractual position.
I wonder what the Britten Estate’s position is on private filming of his work (and the subsequent posting on social media).
A big thank you, Ian.
Just to be clear Norman, I didn’t denounce the policy. I only foind out about it today. I was distracted and I asked people to stop. I do think phones in concerts are a bad idea, for many reasons. Please correct the headline ? And thanks for your support. IB
You were fantastic, Ian, and did so brilliantly to regain your composure and continue with more wonderful singing.
I feel sad that the “policy” wasn’t mentioned to you beforehand and feel that you and all soloists should be able to choose if you want people to put away their phones or not, asked whether you mind being filmed etc. Then Gergely could have mentioned it in his little speech (or other conductors in theirs).
It is disturbing to the audience too, so can quite see how uncomfortable it would be looking out at the lights/devices. And there have been other soloists who have looked disturbed by the filming but they’ve been on their debuts in the hall and perhaps didn’t have the confidence to say something mid-concerto.
Bravo Ian. Wish I’d been in the audience to hear you. And that was an excellent interview you’ve just done on Front Row. Audiences should be considerate not only to performers but also to their fellow audience members. At Ralph Fiennes’ Macbeth a few weeks ago, my heart sank when my neighbour in the front row came back from the interval with a pint of beer and a large packet of crisps. Then, throughout the entire second half, she was bobbing up and down to pick up and drink her beer, which she kept on the floor, crackling the crisp packet and munching the contents. So distracting, but presumably allowed by the theatre.
Re the Scottish Play: enough space to bend forward and pick up a beer? Luxury! In my row, we had to resort to synchronised breathing.
Aside from the discourtesy to performers and fellow audience members, filming video clips of a work like the Britten is surely a breach of copyright.
More inclusive madness.
Thanks for the headline change
I fail to understand why it is not possible for arts and other similar venues merely to have a device which blocks signals to mobile phones etc. I have heard several arguments, not one of which has any merit in my view. Urgent need to convey messages about fire in the building? Isn’t there a PA system that is more effective? Urgent need to contact a member of the audience due to illness? A more obvious requirement, yet what did we do before mobile phones? Besides, if phones are switched off or on silent mode as requested at almost every concert, how is the patron supposed to get these messages?
Grumpy ex-concertgoer here! Bravo Ian Bostridge, but for the moment, it seems that we’re fighting a rearguard retreat. I no longer frequent large concert halls unless i’m sure to get a front balcony seat, for example. There, the worst consquences of phartsmones are mitigated. But anyone in front can be unexpectedly disastrous; from the 2nd balcony row a respectable-looking aged couple started filming, ruining sublime moments of chamber music. When asked to stop, the woman hissed loudly: “That’s my SON…!” One might have thunk a musical (?) family to kno better (the SON was a fine player!).
Even worse, some time ago, an excellent recital by Lise Davidsen in the Borebican (i shd have been warned!), was spoiled by a wretched phartogropher clunking noisily around the stage, his camera clicking and occasionally pinging. Her marvellous rending of Strauss “Morgen” as an encore was then ruined by the respectable-looking lady (with teenage dauter), in front of me, standing to film this most poetic of moments! I let fly my anger at the finish and was promptly lambasted by her naybores for my “elitist” rant….
No more Borebican for me…. Wigbore 1st row balcony still seems safe!
The road to ruin. Why the hell should anyone want to take photos (except that we live in an age where anything that moves needs to be recorded).
Listening to live music is a shared experience and requires commitment and, sometimes some effort of the part of the listener. Having someone next to you, or within eyesight on a mobile phone indicates that that person is not involved and more concerned with what’s happening on their screen. I would find it an intolerable distraction. Even more of a distraction is when that person is not filming but texting or just surfing the internet. Sure, you don’t have to look – shut your eyes but then what’s the point of going to a concert, might as well sit at home and watch something on YouTube? In fairness to the CBSO management they are trying to make a broader appeal to audiences when numbers are declining but frankly I would walk out of a concert where the intrusions were of the order reported the other night
The power of social media to promote is clearly understood by the new person in charge and opera does need promoting and extending. If I were a singer I would actively encourage sharing on social media and adjust to the photography. Just like most bands and musicians do. The publicity is priceless .
It’s not just distracting for the performer. It’s also distracting for the audience.
Emotive, perhaps disive, not actually about the music? Boff… right up Mr Lebrecht’s boulevard then!
Perfect reaction from the artist! A lot of people cannot get these Smartphones out of their hands – and diminish their own experience – whether they are filming at a concert or are busy filming in a museum or in nature instead of actually looking with their own eyes – the digital product will never come close to the real experience (which these people probably can no longer handle) – and yes, digital devices disturb other visitors far more than leafing through the program during the performance, especially since unfortunately not everyone can sit in the front row and thus protect themselves to some extent!
I am grateful to Ian Bostridge for pointing out how upsetting and distracting mobile phones are when used in this way. He is an outstanding, world class singer who deserved more respect. As an audience member I often find my own enjoyment of music ruined such actions. Can people really not sit still and listen for 40 minutes without talking, eating, drinking or using their phones?
Any use a phone is unacceptable in live performances. Phillistines.
The Cadogan Hall is vigilant in stopping people from filming, even in non classical concerts.
Shame on the disrespect to the artists, Stenning. Does she actually appreciate the years of work it takes to get to the level that Mr Bostridge is at? Why shouldn’t the audience be expected to learn some basic manners and respect for the performer? Raise the standards, not dumbing down.
I have been distracted on several occasions by peope taking photos and video and the bright light emited from te phones
Ialso hate the bringing in of drinks and ice cream into the hall
This is distracting to members of the audience to see a constant raising an lowering of the arm to the mouth
Why cannot we have concerts as they used to be
It is indeed becoming a big problem in our concert halls. Recording a live concert on your cell phone is like going to a Michelin restaurant, ordering and then putting your food in Tupperware and taking it back home to eat.
Unfortunately this is becoming a feature of theatre performances too. It is increasingly putting me off going. There is no consideration for other members of the audience. Recently a woman in front of me was stopped at the last minute from entering the auditorium as she was still eating a bucket of KFC chicken. Also commonplace are the sweet paper rustlers and talkers. In one concert I attended some young people were Googling right through the overture. Theatre vary as to how stringent they are about keeping this at bay, so I have frequently had to intervene myself. Poignant musical moments can be totally ruined. Bring back manners!
House lights down for 1st entr’acte at Scottish Ballet’s stunning Swan Lake 19/04/2024 was audiences’ permission to chat, check phones, eat & drink, rather than listen to Tchaikovsky’s prelude to Act 2. I shushed my neighbours, got shouted at, wept at the intrusion but still felt obliged to apologise for my bad manners at the interval. Wish now I hadn’t!
Vesti la giubba e la faccia infarina.
La gente paga, e rider vuole qua.
I fully support Ian Bostridge’s stance on this matter. When I go to a concert, I want to be able to sit back, relax and concentrate on the music – and without any distractions.