Campbell Vertesi

Interesting point brought up recently on Greg Sandow's blog: how important is silent listening in Western classical music?  Some people were offended by his idea that opera companies might twitter ("tweet") interesting tidbits out to audiences during a performance, for fear of distraction.

Mr. Sandow's point is that a little distraction can help people focus, and that 90% of the repertory was written for audiences that didn't sit in rapt attention anyway.   Fair enough.  

For me, the issue is simpler.  Never mind anything else - sitting in silence trying to focus is BORING.  It's a BORING way to listen.  I much prefer when an audience is really involved in the music, shouting bravos at great high notes, applauding in the middle of scenes and the like.  Personally, even when I listen to great opera on recording I end up dancing around, waving my arms like a madman, or yelling at long-retired singers. How can anyone listen to the Faust waltz and NOT get up to dance?  How can you hear Di Quella Pira without wanting to shout "all'armi!"   I think that's part of what makes Opera exciting, is the football-game atmosphere of watching singers perform Great music, achieving something that is truly pushing human capability to the limits.

Maybe you think I'm crazy.  What kind of a performance would it be if audiences allowed themselves to get SO excited by the music that they would interrupt movements?  It would be a THRILLING performance, that's what it would be.  My favorite example is from the Youtube:

I'm sure some people would prefer to sit in stony silence, but personally I prefer a crowd that is awed or hushed into silence by drama and music.  I support efforts like tweeting updates during shows, because I think it makes people's brains act more "alive"  during "live" theatre.

To clap, or not to clap: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The tension and seat-edge-sitting between movements,
Or to clap hands against a sea of great beauty ,
And by opposing end it? To clap: to listen;
No more; and by applause to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That music is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To clap, to listen;
To hear: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that state of music what dreams may come
When we have forgotten the troubles of this mortal coil ,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of interrupted silence;
For who would bear the whips and thrills of applause,
The booer's wrong, the bravo's contumely,
The pangs of cramped legs standing, the curtain's delay,
The insolence of old people leaving and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With bare silence? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat from hands weary of clapping,
But that the dread of something after this movement,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather interrupt to appreciate the music we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?

Got a bit carried away there. But it's a serious question: (links to Wellsung and Sounds and Fury, respectively) clapping between movements: breach of etiquette or show of appreciation? Historical arguments aside (apparently we used to clap between movements), I have to say I've been frustrated by the no-clapping rule at every great concert I've seen. After a particularly beautifully-executed movement or solo, dammit - I want to clap! Some movements end with a definitive flourish that positively begs for applause.

On the other hand, there are clearly works that are conceived as a whole, and clapping would interrupt the flow. Some song cycles in particular spring to mind, where one song ends on an unresolved tension, and the next song continues that harmonic thought. No question here, clappers should be shot along with cellphone-ringers and coughers. But what about other (often earlier) pieces, where each movement is intended as a separate unit that builds a whole? I would say that Mozart should be clapped between movements, but Mahler should not. Debussy is a toss-up. But then, we can't expect the audience to know song literature and music history well enough to tell the difference, can we?

As a performer, I like to make my concerts out of a mishmash of songs from different sources. There's nothing sacred about the silence between the various pieces in my "German set" - I'd like to tell the audience to clap when they feel like it! If that particular song left you aching to voice your appreciation, then you should do it, dammit. Does that make me a Philestine?

If you haven't heard this story yet, I'm proud to be the first to welcome you out from your cave: Roberto Alagna walked out partway through a performance of Aida at La Scala, after being booed for his first aria. There are many angles to cover here.

For non-opera nuts, an Opera-L poster gives a firsthand account (note: Ital-English off the port bow!) of the performance and booing... which gives you some insight into the way singers are judged. Wonder how we can spend days in practice rooms, obsessing over the tinyest detail of a role like Radames? Great art demands it, and informed audiences listen for it. Highlights from the post:

His voice is simply too light for the part and high notes not perfectly focuses. At the opening night he sung a correct Radames but with many "but".... in the theatre [the voice] was more little, with a white color in the high register, no squillo and voice "going back" after the passaggio in the acutes... He painted a new reading of Radames as a protoromantic heroe more close to Donizzetti than Verdi.

But this new reading sounded to many as a "trick" to cover the difficulty of the voice. If the chorus and orchestra sounded to the normal volume you would have missed half of Radames singing.

Find me a review of any rock or pop band that expects so much of the listener! Audience members at the opera know what good singing sounds like (fingers crossed), to the point where a complaint that there was too much "whiteness" in a tenor's sound was enough to get boos. This gives some idea of the complexity and expectations of our art form.

Now, you have to understand that Italian audiences tend to be harsher than we have in the 'states. Recent booing at the Met notwithstanding, Scala audiences have also historically booed singers like Pavarotti, Corelli and Callas, so boos do not necessarily make a poor singer. In fact, the author of that firsthand account seems to think that the boos started as a response to an unearned "bravo". What a business!

This is worth mentioning also from the perspective of stage etiquette. Walking offstage mid-performance is not acceptable. Ever. Period. I don't care what boos and catcalls you get. You may leave if the management pulls you off, if you have an urgent medical condition, or if someone shoots at you from the audience. There is no other reason.

Now here's my favorite angle: this may be the best thing that's happened to La Scala in years. Some time ago, An Unamplified Voice posted a commentary on the crisis in Italian opera. According to the Independant:

This highlights an even more fundamental problem - that the Italian public appears to have fallen out of love with "la lirica" (the opera). A generation ago, the goings-on at La Scala were of intense interest to everyone in Milan. Any Italian taxi driver could hum the most famous arias, and Maria Callas and Giuseppe di Stefano were the celebrities of their day.

But today, thanks to pop music and the Berlusconi-peddled TV diet of soaps, quiz shows and old American movies, Verdi and Puccini have gone out of style. The opera has become the diversion of the rich, the old and the corporate as much as anywhere else - perhaps even more so, given the failure of Italian opera houses to make a pitch for the patronage of their country's youth.

Really! Youth have fallen out of love with opera, and we're surprised? Coincident with the fall of "star syndrome" and the "diva personality" in opera, we suddenly lose the young audience, because their celebrities come from another medium. Coincidence?

Today, La Scala, Aida, Zeffirelli and Alagna were all over the news. This story was carried with full drama by Reuters, the BBC, the Telegraph, the New York Times, the Globe and Mail, the Guardian, the Times, Forbes... the list goes on. Today, everyone who's anybody knows who Roberto Alagna is... and if the show hadn't already sold out before opening night, you can bet your ass it would be sold out now.

Let's face it: diva antics sell tickets, without sacrificing art (unlike many other butts-in-seats suggestions). The Callas-Tibaldi feud, endless stories about Corelli throwing up from nerves before a performance, famous basses literally holding conductors over the pit to make them change musical direction... these things did not harm the art of the music and singing - indeed, they happened during the great "golden age" of opera! - but they sure got audiences interested. Alagna will find his next production very well attended, as will La Scala. Perhaps what the opera industry needs is a few more singers walking out, to compete with Lindsey Lohan's AA meetings and Brad Pitt's breakups.