Dress code in continental opera houses?

[Old Grumpy]

With jackets I tend to wear shirts with button-down collars with the top button undone for comfort. They keep the collar reasonably neat and non-slovenly.

I wouldn't ever wear a suit without a tie.

I wouldn't ever wear a suit!*




OG


* Weddings and funerals perhaps excepted

[Old Grumpy]

That isn't class at all - just pretentiousness.

That was the point really...

OG

[P. G. Tipps]

Sorry to be horridly pretentious but 'an hotel' (without the mischievously-introduced and alien circumflex) sounds absolutely correct to my discerning ears ....

[Pulcinella]

Sorry to be horridly pretentious but 'an hotel' (without the mischievously-introduced and alien circumflex) sounds absolutely correct to my discerning ears ....

But isn't it the 'alien' circumflex that makes some people think they are being posh in saying an hotel?
I have never understood this affectation.
If you say a hosepipe, as I assume you do (unless you have never seen one, and the gardener does all the watering for you), then why would you not say a hotel?

[Pulcinella]

I recall some fairly recent correspondence, probably in The Times, from someone complaining about what he considered poor standards of dress in UK opera houses.
He said that he and his wife preferred to spend their money travelling to continental opera houses where standards were maintained and he would not be affronted by having to sit next to someone not suitably attired.
Never mind the quality of the performance, then?
:-)

[jean]

Doesn't it depend on whether you pronounce the h or not? Hospipe was never a French word.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Why describe it as an "affectation", Pulci? Would you say the same thing a hour from now?

And, here in the North, "an 'osepipe" is far more frequently used (and heard of) than "a hosepipe" (which would be regarded as terribly lad-di-dah and even "Southern" - an epithet far more greatly to be avoided than "affectation"! I've always said "a hotel" (in my childhood, even "a'otel", but then I got heducated - but the first person I ever heard saying "an hotel" was the twelve-tear-old son of a Publican - no affectation, he was astonished to hear the "h" pronounced; the "French" way was the only one he'd ever heard.

[Pulcinella]

Jean and ferney: points taken.
I had never thought about an ’osepipe, I must confess, even coming from Liverpool and doing my own gardening!
But nor do I think that that hoppity-skippity French should affect (hence affectation) our hotel.
Guess we'd all say a hostel (or is this also an ’ostel?) when the circumflex has been replaced by the s?

[vinteuil]

Guess we'd all say a hostel (or is this also an ’ostel?) when the circumflex has been replaced by the s?

... and an ostler for an hôtelier.

I've always said 'an hotel', and most of my friends and acquaintances do too. It's not an affectation - but I do accept that it is now considered old-fashioned - the older pronunciation as "otel" being supplanted by the newer "hotel"

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ostler

.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostler

[jean]

...the lady usher at NOSPR Concert Hall in Katowice deemed his Parka unacceptable attire and insisted he took it off before letting him in.

In Eastern Europe, you don't take an overcoat of any kind into a concert hall with you. You just don't.

It makes for very long cloakroom queues at the end.

[vinteuil]

In Eastern Europe, you don't take an overcoat of any kind into a concert hall with you. You just don't.

. .

It makes for very long cloakroom queues at the end.

... and yet my memories of Teatr Wielki are that - altho' everyone had coats - and most of the women had furs - the cloakrooms were so enormous (occupying a space almost equivalent to the auditorium) and so well-staffed that everyone got out much more quickly than, say, at any London opera house...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theatre,_Warsaw

[jean]

... and yet my memories of Teatr Wielki are that - altho' everyone had coats - and most of the women had furs - the cloakrooms were so enormous (occupying a space almost equivalent to the auditorium) and so well-staffed that everyone got out much more quickly than, say, at any London opera house...

I was thinking of the Zamek Książąt Pomorskich in Szczecin, where I used to go to lunchtime concerts on a Sunday. Szczecin is near the coast so it's nothing like as cold as Warsaw, say, and the cloakroom was more Western-European in size and staffing levels, and your coat probably wasn't that bulky anyway. I tried to sneak mine in once or twice, but I soon learned.

In Moscow where they take these things seriously the cloakrooms are vast - and they have a special space for your boots, and one at the top for your fur hat.

.

[Ferretfancy]

I wouldn't ever wear a suit!*




OG


* Weddings and funerals perhaps excepted

I've only worn a suit once in 50 years, and that was to meet Prince Charles at Highgrove. I hired one from Moss Bross, and felt like an undertaker.

The whole suit business is of course a nonsense that we should resist. The only time an attempt was made to turn me away was at the Awami Hotel in Yosemite, where we had booked for dinner. I was wearing a very smart grey leather jacket, and was told it was unacceptable. I stormed through the large dining room to our table, and told the girl at reception that I had come thousands of miles and needed my dinner, and the whole thing was smoothed over with apologies.

[gurnemanz]

I wouldn't ever wear a suit!*



OG


* Weddings and funerals perhaps excepted

Likewise - might stretch to christenings. Court appearances?

[teamsaint]

Suits make choosing clothes for work an absolute doddle, and thus a useful option.


Can't see the Jacket and shirt without tie problem myself.

re Gurneys # 44 , I wore my sheepskin coat to my one court appearance,and got an absolute discharge,so make of that what you will.

Legal experts will however tell you that an absolute discharge is not the same as not guilty, a fact of which I was in ignorance for about 30 years,thinking myself to be entirely innocent of the charge.