Concert etiquette

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Concert etiquette refers to standards of behavior at concerts such as opera or ballet.

[edit] Overview

Concert etiquette is a set of social norms of people who attend musical performances, and is particularly strong at concerts with an unamplified orchestra. Such audiences have come to expect quiet, and disapprove of fellow members making any kind of noise louder than light breathing. Unavoidable noise such as coughs or sneezes should be delayed until a loud passage if possible, and muffled with a handkerchief, which is most effective placed at the inner elbow joint with the entire arm then pressed over the mouth. Hats are not tolerated as they block the view of the stage.

Audience members who are too eager to applaud at the end of piece are sometimes resented, particularly in the case of a quiet finale such as Tchaikovsky's Pathétique symphony. The conductor always signals the end of the performance by lowering his or her hands to his or her side. Sometimes this is prolonged past the cutoff of the orchestra, with hands held in the air or slowly lowered over several seconds, in the hope of allowing the audience to stay joined with the artistic creation even for just a brief moment after its sounds have ceased.

The convention of silence developed late in the 19th century. Mozart expected that people would eat and talk over his music, particularly at dinner, and was delighted when his audience would clap during his symphonies. [1] Mahler clamped down on claques paid to applaud a particular performer, and specified in the score of his Kindertotenlieder that its movements should not be punctuated by applause.[2] Wagner discouraged what he considered distracting noises from his audience at Bayreuth in 1882.

During the 20th century applause even between movements of a symphony became regarded as a distraction from its momentum and unity, and is now considered a gaffe, though usually tolerated as a well-meaning one; most audiences applaud after the second-last movement of the Tchaikovsky Sixth and conductors seem resigned to this fact. Still, in opera a particularly impressive aria will often be applauded, even if the music is continuing.

In Kabuki an expert audience member is frequently heard loudly yelling the name of an actor at a high point in his performance (kakegoe); this is widely appreciated when judiciously timed. In western opera shouting is generally acceptable only during applause; almost always the word bravo (or brava in the case of a female singer, though this distinction is not always made outside Italy). Both words have original senses of great and skillful but bravo has come to mean well done and is used even at the symphony. Shouting the French word encore (again) at the end of a concert is understood as request for more, but the French bis and Italian da capo (from the start) are obscure in English. Sometimes at rock concerts, lighters are held in the air to signal an encore. With the decline of smokers and increase of cell phones in the early 21st century, cell phones are used in place of lighters. The audience waiting for a concert or opera to begin may talk freely until the end of the applause greeting the entrance of the conductor (or the concertmaster if the orchestra tunes on stage). At performances of Noh in Tokyo however, talking at any time inside the theatre is tacitly disapproved, but in rural Japan audiences "rather like those in Southeast Asia, talk, eat, or doze throughout the plays, or even throw money at actors they admire." [3]

Concerts of popular music with amplification typically maintain more liberal norms. Singing along may not be disapproved; fans may scream wildly or even remove articles of clothing and throw them towards the stage. Dancing to electronic music expands to moshing in certain genres.

Perhaps the most famous collapse of concert etiquette occurred at the premiere of Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring in 1913. The music and violent dance steps depicting fertility rites drew catcalls and whistles from the crowd, soon followed by shouts and fistfights in the aisles. The unrest in the audience eventually degenerated into a riot. The Paris police arrived by intermission, but they restored only limited order. Chaos reigned for the remainder of the performance, and Stravinsky was so upset at the reception of his work that he fled the theater in mid-scene.


[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Robert Spaethling, Mozart's Letters, Mozart's Life, p. 160.
  2. ^ Alex Ross, The Rest Is Noise: Applause, at http://www.therestisnoise.com/2005/02/applause_a_rest.html
  3. ^ Donald Keene, The Pleasures of Japanese Literature, Columbia University Press, 1988 (p.105)
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