{"id":2125,"date":"2012-03-07T13:03:11","date_gmt":"2012-03-07T18:03:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=2125"},"modified":"2012-03-07T13:03:11","modified_gmt":"2012-03-07T18:03:11","slug":"polite-applause-more-damning-than-ovations-and-boos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2012\/03\/07\/polite-applause-more-damning-than-ovations-and-boos\/","title":{"rendered":"Polite applause more damning than ovations and boos"},"content":{"rendered":"

There have been three recent instances reported of people heckling art music or operatic performances that have stirred up waves in the classical music community.<\/p>\n

Lucy Jones, a blogger with The Telegraph<\/em>, describes the latest incident, during a concert presented at London’s Reverb 2012 festival of new music, where a man (who turned out to be a composition student at the Guildhall school) yelled out “Rubbish!” at the top of his lungs.<\/p>\n

You can read her blog post here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is crazy behaviour for a world that, some days, looks like it’s trying to encourage and empower and celebrate anything and everything.<\/p>\n

Operagoers tend to be more voluble (and note how popular opera is these days) but, generally speaking, its much more common to see a standing ovation for a mediocre performance than it is to hear catcalls for something egregious.<\/p>\n

I can appreciate how painful and disorienting it might be for a performer to be booed, but I also think that an audience member having a powerful reaction to a performance is fantastic. The ovation as well as the catcall should come from complete engagement, and should be celebrated as such.<\/p>\n

Is there anything more damning of everyone in a hall than polite applause?<\/p>\n

Here’s the curtain call from a 1989 Vienna State Opera production of Elektra<\/em>, where the audience loves everyone by the conductor:<\/p>\n