I meant to write this article about the opera. I arrived at the Metropolitan Opera House filled with anticipation at the prospect of spending the next three hours surrounded by fellow opera-lovers all gathered to listen to Verdi’s Il Trovatore (“The Troubador”). What I did not anticipate, however, was the inherent rudeness of the audience with whom I was forced to sit.
That’s right, folks. This would-be opera review has turned into something much more serious: a public service announcement for today’s society. Not ten minutes into the opera, as the bass sang his aria Di due figli vivea padre beato (“The good count lived happily, the father of two sons”), it began. I heard the distant yet distinct sound of an iPhone dinging as its owner received a new text message. I rolled my eyes in disgust but re-focused my attentions on the bass, figuring that rude intrusion to be an isolated incident.
I counted three more phone rings in the first act alone.
Now these were just interruptions of the electronic variety. I am not accounting for the whispering, shuffling, moving about, and general attention deficit of the audience. In the fourth act, as the soprano Leonora lay dying and the four main characters sang the quartet Prima che d’altri vivere (“Rather than live as another’s”), the soprano’s dramatic death scene was somewhat diminished as the crackling sounds of someone unwrapping a candy echoed throughout the house.
I recently discussed this issue with my music professor, the renowned Dr. David Glaser. As the head of the music department and known throughout the school for his witty remarks on Sense of Music, he has taken many Stern College for Women student to many musical performance of the classical variety. In this discussion, Dr. Glaser revealed that upon receiving student-priced tickets to the Lincoln Center, he was given a list of rules that had to be read to the students prior to the show. This seemed to be a terrible condescension. For college-aged women to be told not to talk, to silence their phones, not to eat during the performance – it sounded as though these rules were written for elementary to middle-school aged students, not legal adults with enough exposure to culture to know not to break out that bag of chips at a concert.
Sadly, such is not the case. Today’s society has a terrible deficiency in regards to respect. We have been taught to respect nothing and no one: parents, teachers, and elders in general; all of them get the same treatment, as do the rules they represent. I cannot say with any certainty that Guanquin Yu, the soprano whose performance was so callously set aside by someone whose craving for candy just couldn’t wait, but I can say that had I been on stage that evening, I would have been horrified and hurt at the treatment I received as a paid performer.
However, it feels unfair for me to target our age group alone. Prior to last evening’s opera excursion, I might have believed that the older generation was faultless – above reproach, the standard to which we should all be held. However, during Act II, as well-muscled young blacksmiths hammered their anvils to the beat of Vedi le fosche notturne (aptly titled “The Anvil Chorus”), I happened to glance over the aisle. I saw, to my shock, a white-haired bespectacled man texting shamelessly, his lined face lit up by the glow of his phone. I learned a valuable lesson that night: nowadays, lack of respect is not reserved for the young. Age takes on a new meaning (“50 is the new 30!”), and soon not just the positives but also the negatives of that phenomenon will hit us all.
Despite the rude interruptions that pervaded the performance, Verdi’s Il Trovatore was a sight to behold. The story is gripping, the performers are captivating and the music beyond comparison. The Phantom of the Opera is a well-known character: he sabotages the show and ruins the performance. That Phantom still exists today, but he is no longer the man behind the curtain, no. He is the man sitting next to you, looking at his phone and reaching for a candy.