Opera Lovers unite against the ROH and the BBC in unholy alliance

[JFLL]

I hope the band get paid quadruple time. So bizarre and outrageous a use of precious resources. Hope who ever does conduct it makes a total and embarrassing mess of it and it is recorded for posterity.

I've a feeling that this might turn out like the Marx Bros 'Night at the Opera'. Harpo cutting off the conductor's tails at the end, anyone? Or maybe the orchestra could take absolutely no notice of the fake conductor and race through Act II in double-quick time, so that the real performance can start a.s.a.p.?

[ahinton]

I hope the band get paid quadruple time. So bizarre and outrageous a use of precious resources. Hope who ever does conduct it makes a total and embarrassing mess of it and it is recorded for posterity.

But what (if anything) might make you assume that they will, regardless of how much each of its members would deserve no less?

[french frank]

I'm still trying to take this in, but I have read it for myself on the ROH's Twitter page. Do they feel it's an added treat for the audience, thrown in for nothing?

[ahinton]

I've a feeling that this might turn out like the Marx Bros 'Night at the Opera'. Harpo cutting off the conductor's tails at the end, anyone? Or maybe the orchestra could take absolutely no notice of the fake conductor and race through Act II in double-quick time, so that the real performance can start a.s.a.p.?

Maybe some composer (with nothing better to do at the time) might choose to create an opera out of the detritus of all this; as long as he/she doesn't try to call it What Next? (and not just for copyright infringement reasons!), that might at least lend a modicum of potential interest to the "proceedings"/recedings (or not)...

[Petrushka]

How about a little bit of sabotage...?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MN7C_02qPQ

[french frank]

Maybe some composer (with nothing better to do at the time) might choose to create an opera out of the detritus of all this; as long as he/she doesn't try to call it What Next? (and not just for copyright infringement reasons!), that might at least lend a modicum of potential interest to the "proceedings"/recedings (or not)...

A companion piece to Ariadne auf Naxos, perhaps. Imagine it starting with the ROH manager stepping out from behind the curtains to announce to a mainly unaware audience that the opera would be interrupted in the middle for an amateur talent show.

[MrGongGong]

I do become rather tired with the ROH attempting to become accessible and 'out there' (yuck) by increasing access. For this particular venue access, I would have thought, means attending a performance in the main auditorium rather than experiencing a broadcast event; going to the Linbury spaces; a Tea Dance or the increasingly aromatic restaurants. But then again given (a) the prices and (b) my elitist attitude (whatever that is) perhaps not...!

I guess your idea of access doesn't include

people who don't live in or can get to London ?
people who can't physically get into the venue in the first place ?
people who are young ?

of course the ROH should be as accessible as possible , that's why we spend public money on it !

(and the ROH is much cheaper than football !)

[Serial_Apologist]

as long as he/she doesn't try to call it What Next? (and not just for copyright infringement reasons!), that might at least lend a modicum of potential interest to the "proceedings"/recedings (or not)...

Henri Pousseur composed "Votre Faust" with a similar aim in mind. Iirc the audience was invited to vote on different outcomes for the protagonists in the final act.

[Barbirollians]

After I complained this afternoon I received an e-mail from the Director of Marketing who told me they had advertised the extended performance time in a number of locations - not it seems in the booking page and gave as an excuse for interrupting la Boheme with this farrago that changing it back to Act II would take too long and that Act II had been chosen because it was the shortest act and the most exciting with crowd scenes etc .

In which case I suggested they should have let the Maestro conduct the last act ! I did not receive another reply .

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Let us not forget to consider the possibility that the whole Maestro concept is utterly stupid, putting forward celebrities yet again, and at the expense of promising young (and old) conductors who would really benefit form the publicity.

[Panjandrum]

I guess your idea of access doesn't include

people who don't live in or can get to London ?
people who can't physically get into the venue in the first place ?
people who are young ?

of course the ROH should be as accessible as possible , that's why we spend public money on it !

(and the ROH is much cheaper than football !)

I thought Opera North received public funding? Is that accessible to Londoners?

[Panjandrum]

I do become rather tired with the ROH attempting to become accessible and 'out there' (yuck) by increasing access. For this particular venue access, I would have thought, means attending a performance in the main auditorium rather than experiencing a broadcast event; going to the Linbury spaces; a Tea Dance or the increasingly aromatic restaurants. But then again given (a) the prices and (b) my elitist attitude (whatever that is) perhaps not...!

I completed a survey for the National Trust on Knole House and how I would define "access" to the house and the estate. My response was the arrangements for parking facilities, access roads, and opening hours. This would all determine how "accessible" the property was to me.

"Access"? Give me a break.

[Richard Tarleton]

A companion piece to Ariadne auf Naxos, perhaps. Imagine it starting with the ROH manager stepping out from behind the curtains to announce to a mainly unaware audience that the opera would be interrupted in the middle for an amateur talent show.

It's hard to imagine that a savvy ROH audience won't come up with a way of dealing with this.

[Stanfordian]

News just in: in a reversal of policy and what was promised when tickets went on sale, the ROH seems to have decided an hour ago that at this Saturday's performance of La Boheme, the winner of Maestro at the Opera, the BBC's new reality TV programme for celeb baton-faciers, will conduct Act II not at the END of the evening after the end of the performance conducted by Semyon Bychkov, as they were promising people who rang the Box Office only this morning, and indeed tweeted earlier this pm, but now we will have to sit through Act II twice, consecutively, before the actual performance can resume. What a bloody liberty. Trades description act? Suspension of disbelief? Different casts? Trains to catch, anyone? Artistic integrity? I know Tony Hall used to work for the BBC, but he now works for the ROH... doesn't he?

I really feel sorry for the poor so and so's in the audiance that have to sit through all that Celebrity Maestro conducting rubbish/nonsense. No wonder the plan is to have the winning celebrity conducting a repeated performance of act 2 of La bohème. If they had done the celebrity conducting after the final act the audience would have all gone home. I feel sorry for the musicians in the Opera House pit. They must have been given a sweetener, surely?

In one way I’m surprised from a musicianship aspect that Sir Mark Elder has got involved with the programme. On the other hand Sir Mark does seem to love the limelight especially television coverage of himself.

The BBC ought to bring back that experienced maestro Sue Perkins to give the celebrity contestants a few tips.

[ahinton]

A companion piece to Ariadne auf Naxos, perhaps. Imagine it starting with the ROH manager stepping out from behind the curtains to announce to a mainly unaware audience that the opera would be interrupted in the middle for an amateur talent show.

Well, I fell right into that one, did I not?! But then why not go farther by confusing the issue with the inclusion of a scene in which a head is delivered on a platter and someone asks under which of the cars involved in the accident it had been found - and let us not forget that, had a competent traffic police officer waved his/her arms about more effectively, that accident might never have happened in the first place; there must be a moral in that somewhere...