It now seems that the coughing child whose parents Kyung Wha Chung rebuked in the middle of a Mozart violin sonata at the Royal Festival Hall was not only coughing but giggling and distracting people sitting close to her in the front row of the stalls. So what could reasonably have been done about it other than in some way take action?
To intervene oneself could have been counter productive. Not all members of an audience would respond amicably if nudged and asked to control their offspring. If a similar offence was committed by someone texting on a mobile phone, the situation could indeed quite easily have turned nasty.
Sir Georg Solti knew what he was doing when he got attendants to move the member of the audience who was sitting coughing directly behind him while he was conducting at Covent Garden. How he did it in the midst of a Wagner performance is hard to say, but it certainly worked.
For a performer to intervene publicly, however, tends to be tricky. When Kyung Wha Chung did so the other day, she clearly irritated the critic of The Times, who evidently did not seen to be enjoying the concert very much in any case.
The occasion a few years ago when the Hungarian pianist Andras Schiff stopped his performance at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, announced lucidly to the audience “A little pause for coughing” and walked off the platform for a few minutes, seemed to cause more shock than useful effect. The atmosphere did not grow toxic, as The Times claimed it did at Kyung Wha Chung’s recital, but it did grow uncomfortable - though Schiff was right, I thought, to make his point without singling out an individual member of the audience for attack.
Whenever James Loughran, in his days as conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, came on to the platform before the audience was fully settled, he stood staring balefully into the auditorium until silence reigned and everyone was sitting down . Only then did the performance begin.
But the irascible Finnish conductor Paavo Berglund went further than that while conducting the RSNO one night in Aberdeen in the 1980s. Distracted by unrest in the auditorium, he stopped the orchestra and did not restart until order was restored.
9 December 2014
It is known in the music business that some artists can be more difficult to work with than others. Certainly for a while Ms. Chung was on that list. Another, Martha Argerich, was near the top of a promoters' unofficial ‘cancellation table’ with a near 50% chance she would not turn up! Even the great Pavarotti became increasingly casual about which performances he’d sing and which he would cancel, to the point where in 1989 Chicago’s Lyric Opera announced he would never be invited to sing there again. The reason? In the previous eight seasons, he had cancelled 26 of his 41 contracted performances!
ReplyDeleteThe incident involving Rostropovich I mentioned earlier in response to the first of CW’s posts on what is now commonly referred to as the 'KWC incident' occurred during a recital soon after the opening of Taipei’s acoustically wonderful Concert Hall in the late 1980s. Amongst the VIPs in the audience were Taiwan’s President and several members of the cabinet. As Slava and his long-time accompanist, Lambert Orkis, came on stage, there was thunderous applause. About 15 minutes in to the first half Slava, in the middle of a very expressive phrase, happened to raise his eyes to the ceiling. Suddenly he stopped. A few bars later, Orkis also stopped. They spoke. Both then left the stage.
The audience was abuzz. What had gone wrong? Had he broken a strong? After a long five minutes had elapsed, doors opened and stage crew appeared pulling a tallescope, a large electronic ladder. The audience could see this being extended way up to ceiling height and some work being done. Eventually it was removed, the artists returned to the stage and started the movement again.
Like those of many artists, the contracts for all Rostropovich performances had a clause specifically forbidding the presence of any microphones on stage and in the auditorium. This was meant to ensure that no unofficial recording could be made. In those days this was to prevent them being issued as pirate CDs.
As he gazed up to the ceiling, Rostropovich had noticed a microphone. Запрещенный! Forbidden! End of argument! Backstage it was explained to him that this was the standard stage microphone common in every concert venue to relay the performance to the backstage loudspeakers for the stage manager and the dressing rooms. Not acceptable, was the reply. Such microphones tend to be masked or hidden in most venues. Unfortunately for Taipei, this one had been in view – just! Consequently it had to be removed. Not only did this result in a major 20-minute interruption for the audience and embarrassment for the promoter, Rostropovich made neither explanation nor apology.
Unfortunately coughing and fidgeting children are just two of many problems concert promoters have to consider!