For some reason we doubt that's an emergency call.

Performing arts don’t only demand prodigious skill, but a willingness to expose emotions, even if the exposure only occurs through an interpretation of someone else’s work.  This is why performing artists should be commended—not just for developing ability, but for risking emotional vulnerability in front of a subjective audience.  The interactions of performer with audience are very interesting, but almost commensurate in complexity is the behavioral response of an audience during a performance.

As depicted by a scene in the movie Amelie, viewing the rapt faces of an audience in a movie theater can be more entertaining than the film itself.  Not only can audience behavior be fascinating, but it can also be excruciatingly and infuriatingly distracting from the performance itself!  Fury, rather than fascination, was what audience behavior provoked in me during the Regina Opera’s performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, and at the very least, massive irritation. The Regina Opera puts on performances in a venue identical in appearance to an elementary school auditorium, and they are practically an antithesis to the very behavior oriented Met, or City Opera.  Such a relaxed environment, in which latecomers are welcomed in, rather than glared at, and in which bottles of Scotch are raffled off during intermission, is conducive to loosening the etiquette of an audience.   However, the misfortune of being a friendly and relaxed opera company is that to some people it gives the impression that it’s acceptable to do whatever the hell you want during a performance.

Oh, yes.  They did.

The couple who sat behind me came in unabashedly late during the first scene, which was already high in tension (since Don Giovanni is accused of rape by Don Anna, and then proceeds to kill her father).  The man, who sat directly behind me began, as soon as he was fully seated, to kick my chair.  He then proceeded to bounce his leg rapidly, shaking my entire metal folding chair.  This was both uncomfortable and audible.  He also whispered wetly to the woman next to him.  She was not just an accomplice however, but his equal in crime.  The woman of the duo, who had arrogant and beady eyes, began with a rather stupendously cliche offense:  her phone began to ring, tinkling tunefully.   (So, not only were they late, but their phones were on, and they had noisy ringtones!)  Then, to truly mark her territory in the world of concert offenders, she didn’t even apologetically turn her phone off in a rushed manner.  She stared ahead, determined to not admit her wrongdoing, until I turned and gave her a foul look, after which she turned her phone off.

Oh, no, she wouldn't. (Oh, yes, she did.)

Then, crescendoing in her virtuosic performance of defiant rudeness, she began to chew gum.  This wouldn’t have been so bad if she had chewed gum like a normal person.  That is, silently!  Instead she actually cracked and popped and sucked on her gum like some sort of  beatboxer, which, I’ll say, didn’t really add anything to Don Giovanni.

Resigning myself to the role of the haughty audience glarer, I repeatedly turned around and  indicated with a frown that she quiet her salivating din, and repeatedly she would obediently stop and then, within a minute, begin cracking and popping again!  Ordinarily I would have dismissed this as an obnoxious pair, and wondered briefly “Why the hell did they come to the opera if they would rather kick, jiggle, and suck?”  But then during intermission, they truly imprinted themselves in my memory forever by actually having the gall to make friends with me as though I had not given them dirty looks during the whole first act, and made it intensely clear that I disliked them enormously.  As they asked me inane questions like “Are you an opera buff?” and “What do you think of teenagers and classical music?”, I  barely restrained myself from demanding, “Are you completely oblivious to social convention AND deaf to the amount of noise that you make???” and “What do you think of men who whisper and bounce their legs on other people’s chairs???”

They tell musicians who are playing the accompaniment “If you can’t hear the soloist you are too loud.”  If YOU, in the audience, can’t hear the soloist, you are certainly too loud.  If the audience members around you can’t hear the soloist, you are Obnoxious.  I don’t care how informal the venue is:  Don’t be rude.  Don’t giggle, bounce, suck and whisper.

So easy!

And that’s my rant.  Thank you, kindly.  🙂