Prom 53 (28.08.20) Live performance; Eroica Symphony

[Pulcinella]

Re Fry, neither the content of CE nor Quiet City are by Wagner.

My thoughts exactly!!

[Prommer]

I am at a loss to understand why it was not possible to accommodate some... erm... paying customers? In Salzburg, they have been giving concerts of Bruckner 4 and even Elektra, fully staged. With a (distanced) audience.

[cloughie]

Re Fry, neither the content of CE nor Quiet City are by Wagner.

So not only do the BBC employ a Celeb smartass, but one who either they don’t brief or who no doubt receives a hefty fee and can’t be bothered to do his homework.

[Constantbee]

I am at a loss to understand why it was not possible to accommodate some... erm... paying customers? In Salzburg, they have been giving concerts of Bruckner 4 and even Elektra, fully staged. With a (distanced) audience.

I'd agree with that. The Orchestra of Opera North at Leeds Town Hall gave a splendid socially distanced return to live performance last night, by all accounts. Tickets sold out within 10 minutes. Attendance 270. Singer Nicholas Watts and a programme of Mozart, Schubert and Mendelssohn.

Safety procedures included mandatory face coverings for the audience, socially distanced seating and hand sanitising stations on entry and around the venue. The contact details of audience members were recorded to ensure they could be reached as part of NHS Track and Trace. The performance lasted just over an hour with no interval. No bars or refreshments. Is that really so hard to organise?

A lacklustre Eroica for me, but I enjoyed the rest of the programme and I'm glad we're still able to hear some new commissions

[jonfan]

(Stephen Fry clearly didn't know that the BBCS HAD in fact given us a recent Choral Evensong; nor did he seem to have heard Quiet City before. )

Reason enough to stick with Petroc and co on the wireless.
Bravo Opera North leading the way in Leeds.

[LHC]

I am at a loss to understand why it was not possible to accommodate some... erm... paying customers? In Salzburg, they have been giving concerts of Bruckner 4 and even Elektra, fully staged. With a (distanced) audience.

Indeed. The size of the RAH must make it one of the easier venues to accommodate a socially-distanced audience.

Ironically, the Kanneh-Masons, who will be performing to an empty RAH in a few weeks time, have already performed in front of a small socially-distanced audience in Aldeburgh, and I think the Cadogan Hall has recommenced concerts with an audience. If it is possible in these much smaller halls, it should have been possible in the RAH.

[Frances_iom]

my own impression was it 'worthy' but totally undeserving of the hype and actually not a great programme, the Beethoven somewhat low key - the only good point was the absence of KD + TS - maybe tonight's organ recital will be better, tho why similar organ recitals were not done earlier defeats me - since the Albert hall takes 5000 surely an audience of a 1000 would be possible

[bluestateprommer]

I am at a loss to understand why it was not possible to accommodate some... erm... paying customers? In Salzburg, they have been giving concerts of Bruckner 4 and even Elektra, fully staged. With a (distanced) audience.

From this distance, AFAICT and IMHO, I can imagine many logistical hurdles to overcome and issues to address, e.g.:

* How to control audience entry and exit, because the RAH has multiple entry and exit points, compared to most concert halls and opera houses which pretty much have one side of the building as the main focus of entry and exit
* How much hand sanitizer to provide
* Where to put the audience in the RAH, to maintain social distancing, but also to minimize fiscal and physical expense of having to sanitize the audience area after individuals have occupied particular seats
* Personal privacy issues, because it would be necessary to maintain contact information for all of the ticket-buying patrons in case of infection and it becomes necessary to contact that individual
* Perhaps most importantly: how to pay for all that
* Closely tied to that, for an audience who normally doesn't think about such issues: how much to charge for tickets

Back in June, Craig Hassall posted at the RAH's site about the financial challenges of the pandemic and the loss of live events:

"It costs £12.7m a year to maintain our Grade I-listed building and £14.3m to pay our staff. In the 100 days since closure we would have expected revenue of £11m but instead we have been refunding nearly £5m worth of tickets, most of which were sold last year.

The Hall is a charity with no regular government funding. We are taking out a £5m CBILS loan, and our staff’s livelihoods have been saved until now by the government’s Jobs Retention Scheme."

In terms of how many people to try to accommodate as an audience in the RAH, later in CH's post:

"Under the latest distancing rules our capacity would be reduced to around 36%. In order for us to break even, and therefore be sustainable as a charity, we typically need a capacity of between 80-90%.

Some one-off events will be viable, and we are working to find these and other ways to generate income. The BBC will be able to host live concerts here for the final two weeks of the 2020 Proms season for instance, with or without a socially distanced audience. However we cannot viably reopen for the vast majority of events."

With such reduced audience capacity, it would be necessary to raise ticket prices substantially, to be able to pay for all of the pandemic-related maintenance of the facility. Given that one can traditionally Prom for £6, it's easy to imagine that people would be less willing to pay higher prices for shorter concerts.

This is a tremendously complicated situation, and the above comments probably don't address the half of it. I, for one, do not envy Craig Hassall or David Pickard this challenge.

BTW, David Nice has what looks like the first review, from The Arts Desk, presumably from watching the TV relay. He reflects the mixed feelings expressed here on this thread:

https://theartsdesk.com/classical-music/bbc-proms-live-online-bbc-singers-bbcso-oramo-review-%E2%80%93-threnodies-empty-hall

[Barbirollians]

From this distance, AFAICT and IMHO, I can imagine many logistical hurdles to overcome and issues to address, e.g.:

* How to control audience entry and exit, because the RAH has multiple entry and exit points, compared to most concert halls and opera houses which pretty much have one side of the building as the main focus of entry and exit
* How much hand sanitizer to provide
* Where to put the audience in the RAH, to maintain social distancing, but also to minimize fiscal and physical expense of having to sanitize the audience area after individuals have occupied particular seats
* Personal privacy issues, because it would be necessary to maintain contact information for all of the ticket-buying patrons in case of infection and it becomes necessary to contact that individual
* Perhaps most importantly: how to pay for all that
* Closely tied to that, for an audience who normally doesn't think about such issues: how much to charge for tickets

Back in June, Craig Hassall posted at the RAH's site about the financial challenges of the pandemic and the loss of live events:



In terms of how many people to try to accommodate as an audience in the RAH, later in CH's post:



With such reduced audience capacity, it would be necessary to raise ticket prices substantially, to be able to pay for all of the pandemic-related maintenance of the facility. Given that one can traditionally Prom for £6, it's easy to imagine that people would be less willing to pay higher prices for shorter concerts.

This is a tremendously complicated situation, and the above comments probably don't address the half of it. I, for one, do not envy Craig Hassall or David Pickard this challenge.

BTW, David Nice has what looks like the first review, from The Arts Desk, presumably from watching the TV relay. He reflects the mixed feelings expressed here on this thread:

https://theartsdesk.com/classical-mu...ies-empty-hall

I was delighted to hear a live concert . I did not warm to Whitacre’s bland piece . The commission was OK and Quiet City was effective .

I enjoyed the Eroica but good points are made above re the balance - my ideal Eroica is probably Erich Kleiber with the VPO and the first part of the first movement lacked grip and fire for me but things improved from them on .

PS How anyone can describe Stephen Fry as a celeb smartass beggars belief . A really offensive and inaccurate statement.

[Prommer]

From this distance, AFAICT and IMHO, I can imagine many logistical hurdles to overcome and issues to address, e.g.:

* How to control audience entry and exit, because the RAH has multiple entry and exit points, compared to most concert halls and opera houses which pretty much have one side of the building as the main focus of entry and exit
* How much hand sanitizer to provide
* Where to put the audience in the RAH, to maintain social distancing, but also to minimize fiscal and physical expense of having to sanitize the audience area after individuals have occupied particular seats
* Personal privacy issues, because it would be necessary to maintain contact information for all of the ticket-buying patrons in case of infection and it becomes necessary to contact that individual
* Perhaps most importantly: how to pay for all that
* Closely tied to that, for an audience who normally doesn't think about such issues: how much to charge for tickets

All of this reinforces the scale of the challenge, but it is one that IS already being met and managed elsewhere. I would have thought it important to surmount them for a few concerts at the end of the Proms season, even if it means a temporary increase in ticket prices. What is the thing that is most special and important about the Proms, compared with other concerts? Its audience.

The alternative is to do nothing other than have live streamed concerts to an empty hall, or lobby to have some of these restrictions lifted! Neither of those are immediately palatable to most.

Incidentally, we also need to have full orchestra concerts back, again as done elsewhere, eg the VPO, where testing and temperature checks have got around the need to have so few musicians on the platform.

[jonfan]

PS How anyone can describe Stephen Fry as a celeb smartass beggars belief . A really offensive and inaccurate statement.

[Pulcinella]

PS How anyone can describe Stephen Fry as a celeb smartass beggars belief . A really offensive and inaccurate statement.

Sorry, but that's EXACTLY what he is, or at least how he comes across to me.
A smug, self-styled, self-promoting pundit who actually doesn't know his stuff and someone to whom the BBC gave too much airtime.
Actually, I thought that we'd got rid of him and that he was now living in California, surrounded by luvvies, so was quite surprised to see him in the RAH.
Was there REALLY no-one else available?

[teamsaint]

Sorry, but that's EXACTLY what he is, or at least how he comes across to me.
A smug, self-styled, self-promoting pundit who actually doesn't know his stuff and someone to whom the BBC gave too much airtime.
Actually, I thought that we'd got rid of him and that he was now living in California, surrounded by luvvies, so was quite surprised to see him in the RAH.
Was there REALLY no-one else available?

Jarvis Cocker is another similar celeb whose BBC airtime massively outlasts the value he has to offer.Oh, and Iggy Pop too.....and some other people I could mention.......

[jonfan]

Sorry, but that's EXACTLY what he is, or at least how he comes across to me.
A smug, self-styled, self-promoting pundit who actually doesn't know his stuff and someone to whom the BBC gave too much airtime.
Actually, I thought that we'd got rid of him and that he was now living in California, surrounded by luvvies, so was quite surprised to see him in the RAH.
Was there REALLY no-one else available?

I don’t remember him being invited before and being a polymath his views are always worth hearing IMHO. He has been very ill I believe. Good to see him.

[teamsaint]

I don’t remember him being invited before and being a polymath his views are always worth hearing IMHO. He has been very ill I believe. Good to see him.

Probably on for the viewing figures. There must be dozens of actual experts who were likely available at modest cost.