Post by Trog on Apr 12, 2017 10:22:30 GMT
Why opera audiences boo:
The opera world was riveted this December not on a grand opera but on a soap opera: the saga of Roberto Alagna, who was loudly booed at La Scala in Milan after he sang “Celeste Aïda,” the opening tenor aria in Verdi’s Aïda. It was not the booing that caused the storm, but the fact that Alagna left the stage, refusing to return. An understudy, Antonello Palombi, replaced him, with no time even to take off his jeans and put on a costume. Palombi was roundly cheered at the end of the opera— more for his heroism than his voice.
In this case, Alagna outdid himself in tastelessness. After he exited the stage, shaking his fist at the audience (or giving a military salute— reports differ), he went out into the cold, where he snapped some photos on his cell phone and gave onlookers an a cappella performance of Puccini’s “Addio, fiorito asil,” Pinkerton’s farewell to Japan in Madama Butterfly. A melodramatic farewell to La Scala, perhaps.
La Scala audiences have booed the best of them: Renata Tebaldi because she wasn’t Maria Callas, Callas because she wasn’t Tebaldi. Mirella Freni was booed by Renata Scotto fans. Renee Fleming was booed at La Scala because the audience didn’t like her interpolated runs in Lucrezia Borgia, after which the conductor, Gianluigi Gelmetti, became so upset that he collapsed twice on stage and had to be carted off by ambulance.
At La Scala, this unattractive habit can be attributed mainly to the loggionisti, those people sitting in the highest, least expensive seats, who feel they have the right to make their negative opinions known. Their rationale is that people wealthy enough to buy good tickets don’t know or care about opera— they come merely to be seen, whereas the loggionisti arrive with encyclopedic knowledge (and often entire scores of the opera). When La Scala was renovated some years ago, an attempt was made to silence them by eliminating standing-room seats. The effort, not surprisingly, failed.
Booing is only one weapon in the loggionisti arsenal. Words like cretino, which needs no translation, are heard at times, and bouquets are thrown, not of flowers but of radishes (in the case of Callas) and turnips (for Renata Scotto).
Booing is only one weapon in the loggionisti arsenal. Words like cretino, which needs no translation, are heard at times, and bouquets are thrown, not of flowers but of radishes (in the case of Callas) and turnips (for Renata Scotto).
Sometimes the loggionisti don’t get away with their actions. Both tenor Salvatore Licitra and conductor Riccardo Muti were booed at La Scala in 2000 when Licitra failed to interpolate the traditional high C in “Di quella pira” from Il trovatore. Muti, who usually opposes any note that’s not original to the score, turned around and informed the loggionisti that an opera house is not a circus. Earlier, the tenor Franco Corelli was so angered by a heckler in Naples that he ran offstage in full costume and burst into the box where the culprit sat.
Opera managements differ in their response to audience heckling. At the Met in 2003— the Joseph Volpe era— a man who booed the Canadian soprano Alexandra Deshorties was thrown out at intermission by security guards. Peter Gelb, who now heads the company, might well react differently. After the Alagna incident, Gelb was reported as saying that an audience has the right to boo. He did, however, draw the line at tomato throwing.
Opera lovers are a breed in themselves. Many of them know and care little about other forms of classical music. And they’re more overtly passionate than other music lovers. If an opera doesn’t sound as it should to their ears, they take it personally. In short, they’re typically like opera itself, i.e., lacking subtlety and prone to give vent to their feelings.
So what is the antidote? The conductor Giuseppe Patane may have found the solution in 1982, when the Met audience booed tenor Carlo Bini, who replaced had Domingo. Writing of that performance in a recent New York Times letter, a player with the Met orchestra reported that the conductor, Giuseppe Patane was so angry that he stopped conducting.
"Shame on you! Have at least some respect for Ponchielli!" he shouted. "If you don't like it, don't clap."
It worked. The audience sat in stunned silence for the rest of the opera. To Bini's great credit, he sang through not only the opera but the whole run.
"Shame on you! Have at least some respect for Ponchielli!" he shouted. "If you don't like it, don't clap."
It worked. The audience sat in stunned silence for the rest of the opera. To Bini's great credit, he sang through not only the opera but the whole run.
I can't leave the subject of booing without mentioning one kind of booing that is not only acceptable but downright fun. That is when the character, rather than the singer who portrays him or her, is booed. Adults almost never do that, but kids do. When, a few years ago, the Opera Company of Philadelphia hosted high school students at a dress rehearsal of Puccini's Tosca, I heard the students let out a prolonged boo as the singer portraying the evil Scarpia came out to take his solo bow. It was the best compliment they could have given him.
And don't piss off the Prima Donna:
Tenor Jonas Kaufmann was left waiting on stage when his co-star, Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu, missed her entrance in the third act of the Vienna State Opera’s production of Puccini’s Tosca at the weekend. The conspicuous absence was caught on video and shared online by an audience member. Kaufmann sang to the orchestra’s accompaniment, and in Italian, “Non abbiamo il soprano” (We don’t have a soprano), eliciting much laughter from the audience. After waiting a little longer, the tenor shrugged to the audience, stood up and asked the audience, in German, to excuse them.
The soprano’s tardiness came after Kaufmann sang an encore of his aria E lucevan le stelle.
The soprano’s tardiness came after Kaufmann sang an encore of his aria E lucevan le stelle.