Opera Audiences Return To Historic Raucousness

Two incidents of raucously censorious opera audiences seem to have caught the public unaware in recent weeks. At the Metropolitan Opera, Placido Domingo was booed when he conducted a “La Bohème,” in which Anna Netrebko sang her only Mimi of the Met season. Five days later at La Scala in Milan, Italy, Roberto Alagna, singing Radamès in Franco Zeffirelli’s new production of “Aida,” was greeted with catcalls at the end of his “Celeste Aida,” early in Act I. Mr. Alagna beat a hasty retreat, and Antonello Palombi was thrown onstage to pinch hit.These two episodes generated more press buzz than is usual today for opera, which — like classical ballet — has virtually disappeared from the television screen. And it was the degree of interest that was surprising, given that opera — and to some extent ballet — have a long history of vociferous audience displays. And at no house has this been more true than at La Scala. But the stir created by Mr. Alagna’s walkout and Mr. Domingo’s handling of Ms. Netrebko may be due in part to the fact that in today’s context they are anomalous examples of displeasure: We are living through a period of comparatively sedate audience behavior.The current norm of the polite and respectful audience developed only in this century. At the time when opera was an emerging form, audience responses were anything but decorous. In Britain, Restoration audiences of the late 1600s flocked to comedies that satirized the erotic foibles of fashionable libertines, and the audience’s mood was as uninhibited as the onstage characters. Prostitutes made themselves conspicuous, and orange-selling wenches plied their wares while the performance was in progress. Theaters were also notorious assignation places for illicit lovers. And the audience was frank in its yeas or nays hurled at the stage.Both the recent examples of booing came from the upper reaches of the theater, where one can often find the most loyal and most demonstrative opera loves. At La Scala they are called the “loggionisti,” and they have long held sway and can be intensely partisan.When Maria Callas joined La Scala in 1951, Renata Tebaldi was the opera house’s reigning prima donna, but Callas didn’t believe in limelight-sharing with rival sopranos. At the end of the 1954–55 season, Tebaldi announced that she was leaving La Scala, her departure widely attributed to Callas’s steady and unsubtle encroachment. At a Callas performance soon after, Tebaldi’s loyalists retaliated by hissing and pelting Callas with radishes. The myopic Callas at first thought they were flowers and scooped them up gratefully. Nevertheless, Antonio Ghiringhelli, La Scala’s then-manager, arranged for 150 policemen to be present at Callas’s next appearance.Likewise: “The whistles started even before I had begun to sing,” Mr. Alagna claimed in an interview with Agence France-Presse, thus alluding to the presence of this same type of organized unruliness that had greeted Callas. In fact, claques of this kind are usually comprised of volunteers who expect no more reward than their idol’s gratitude and affection. But in Europe claques have often functioned as mercenaries, and they can be fierce enemies indeed.Here in New York, the claque was a fixture at the Met in the 1950s and ’60s, but today is largely obsolete. These days, boos are rare, except on the opening nights of new productions when the director or designer will invariably draw someone’s ire. But on the whole, audiences are much more benign — and perhaps less emotionally involved. Audiences routinely jump to their feet at the end of a performance, to the point where it now seems like every performance receives a standing ovation. But it’s difficult to say how many people are paying tribute or rushing to beat the crowd to a taxi. The ovations don’t last too long, usually no more than one or perhaps two solo bows for each leading singer, no matter how celebrated or accomplished. At times on the ballet stage, dancers take multiple curtain calls even though the audience has mainly stopped clapping. The result is an awkward moment when applause resumes in response to the drawing back of the curtain, and the audience must politely acknowledge the uncalled for reappearance of the stars.It’s all a far cry from 30 years ago, when I first became hooked on opera at the Met. Whenever a major diva sang, ovations could easily last 15 minutes and frequently they lasted much longer. Programs were torn into confetti and rained down from the higher tiers. In any kind of weather, fans flocked to the stage door, waiting steadfastly for their idols to emerge, no matter how long the star dallied with backstage visitors. Before stepping into a waiting limousine, the stars patiently fielded swarming crowds who requested autographs or simply a few seconds of face time.Does today’s rather rational response signal the diminished importance of opera and ballet in today’s culture? Or is it a sign of well-adjusted enthusiasts having taken the place of rabid fans? It’s difficult to say. And it’s difficult to know whether Mr. Alagna’s rejection by the loggionisti was authentic distaste or vested-interest harassment. But it was certainly a potent reminder that over the decades, the hugeness of onstage emotions in the opera repertory has precipitated and been all but equaled by a passionately responsive public. On the whole, this has added to the excitement and intensity of the opera-going experience. And so perhaps the recent tempests have made us somewhat nostalgic for what has been.

Opera Audiences Return To Historic Raucousness

Opera Audiences Return To Historic Raucousness

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