Opera audiences’ love of booing creates a high barrier for first-timers to leap over, warns Alice Jones.
Curtain calls for opera and ballet are not what you’d call efficient. At the ballet, they are particularly endless – elegant curtsies and who-me? leaps from the leading dancers, modest bows from the corps de ballet, more solo bows and curtsies, bouquets, chest-clutching and so on. By the end your palms can be as sore as the prima ballerina’s toes. Then again, after three hours performing, they have probably earned a couple of minutes of being adored while standing still.
It’s not much speedier at the opera, though there is less fancy footwork involved. Everyone gets their bout of applause, a few bravas and bouquets are meted out and then, on opening night, the leads usher the creatives – the conductor of the orchestra, the director and designer and so on – onto the stage for more applause... Keep reading on iNews
Curtain calls for opera and ballet are not what you’d call efficient. At the ballet, they are particularly endless – elegant curtsies and who-me? leaps from the leading dancers, modest bows from the corps de ballet, more solo bows and curtsies, bouquets, chest-clutching and so on. By the end your palms can be as sore as the prima ballerina’s toes. Then again, after three hours performing, they have probably earned a couple of minutes of being adored while standing still.
It’s not much speedier at the opera, though there is less fancy footwork involved. Everyone gets their bout of applause, a few bravas and bouquets are meted out and then, on opening night, the leads usher the creatives – the conductor of the orchestra, the director and designer and so on – onto the stage for more applause... Keep reading on iNews