BBC interrupt service

In what I suspect is a Covent Garden first, the Royal Opera House will interrupt Saturday night's performance of La bohème so that the BBC can film the finale to their Maestro at the Opera competition. 

Once Act 2 of the real show is done, Maestro Bychkov will make way for the BBC's contest winner, who will 'conduct' another Act 2, this time purely for the BBC's cameras. After this, the real show will resume with Act 3.

This arrangement avoids the need to build the complex Act 2 set twice in one night. But it may not go down well with certain customers, or to be totally accurate, their husbands. They had expected the filming to begin after Act 4, leaving them free to escape it altogether and go home at a more reasonable hour.

Luckily there are usually some highly-recommended divorce lawyers in the audience.

Thanks to reader hippoes for pursuing this with the ROH:

 

 

Comments

[DESR]

"Part of the final show will be filmed at the Royal Opera House on Saturday 5 May, after that evening's performance of La bohème"

That is what the ROH's customers were told before they booked. That has now been changed just this afternoon. I think it's a bit more serious than just a few disgruntled hubbies.

[Kit Gill]

Can they not perform it BEFORE act two, so we can just have a longer interval and go out for supper?

I am still seething and fully intent on smuggling in a vuvuzela.

[DESR]

Any criticism (at least until any backdown comes when they realise booing will be the order of the day) will be met with the insinuation that one is a spoilsport, or a snob, or want the stagehands to work Dickensian hours etc etc

[Frances]

Probably a silly question but were the tickets cheaper as everyone in the audience was going to be a BBC extra?
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Intermezzo replies - hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

No. Some people have paid nearly £200 for the privilege of having their evening interrupted.

[Morgan]

Oh god,i'm going on Saturday. This is going to be both tedious and ANNOYING! Sadly I have a guest from out of town who's coming with me, otherwise i'd probably just cancel and try my luck for tickets on another night.

[Frances]

I didn't really think they would be cheaper... just thought I'd stir things a bit more! But I am sure I remember the original listings (now gone) said somethng about an exciting collaboration with the BBC AFTER the show and that they hoped the audience would stay for it. If I am right surely people are entitled to some compensation if they are not going to see the performance of Boheme as they would have expected. Not that it affects me, I've seen enough Copley Bohemes for the time being.

[Dan]

Opportunism by Tony Hall to increase the chances of his going back to the BBC as Director-General? :)

[Kit]

So are we all agreed thet we will shout "disgracefull" and "shame" after whatever announcement they make? and then massively boo at quiet moments? Pity it isn't live. And we will most certainly tell the world the winners on every blog and comment and twitter feed available. And I have already alerted the press!

[DESR]

Frances
A) yes, you are a stirrer
B) yes, people were told when booking that this would occur AFTERWARDS
C) what makes them think people will hang around for a repeat of act 2 following immediately, and, even if they do, keep quiet and play nice for the cameras?

[DESR]

I am not on Twitter but Norman Lebrecht seems to have picked this up, as others will. The ROH has suddenly turned into a shambles, seemingly overnight. What has changed? Is this Mr Holten's doing? His arrival is what has changed, it seems to me.

[SJT]

Bohème comprises 1 hour 50 minutes of music, and could easily get lost inside the first acts of Parsifal or Gotterdammerung. Yet thanks to the ever-lengthening intervals the house has in this show on either side of Act III, it comes down at not much earlier than 10.25 after a 7.30 start. If we're getting a shambolic amdram rerun of the 20-minute Act II (in which the kids' chorus couldn't keep in tempo even for Bychkov on Monday) thrown in for good measure, is the ROH prepared for the mass exodus that will precede Act IV on a night supposedly geared for provincial punters who have trains to catch?

[James]

[redacted]
************************************
Intermezzo replies - Naming the victor in three words is strictly embargoed at present. But everyone is welcome to allude away.

[Frances]

I reckon that the original plan was for the winner to conduct the last act at the end of the evening. Then some BBC person with no commonsense and even less understanding of the theatre thought that viewers would not be impressed by a death scene with only a few singers in an attic. So:"Let's show Act 2 that's much more fun!" No-one at ROH wants to upset the BBC so the evening is changed.
I do feel sorry for those people who thought that the 7.00pm start meant that they would be able to get away a bit earlier at the end of Act 4.
Will they stop people escaping at the end of Act2 part1?

[amac]

I don't understand it from a technical point of view !

I have seen the sets move at a performance a few years ago. The garret goes off to the side and the cafe is on a wagon which moves forward with chorus and all.

Takes about 3-5mins.

Two reasons spring to mind -

• Everyone would b****er off home.
• They would probably have to start paying the chorus etc extra

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Intermezzo replies - could also be that the kid's chorus need to be tucked up in bed by the time the show ends.

[Morgan]

Do you think they'll let us go to the bar for 20mins whilst they re-do Act II?? The finish time doesn't bother me,I've not far to travel home, but I'm not sure I can sit through anything twice in immediate succession!I'm actually going again in June to see this so really it shouldn't be a big deal, I'm just disappointed as i'm taking someone to their first opera and this just seems like a bit of a bizarre introduction!If it'd just been kept at the end, all would have been fine,sigh!

[Mr Bear]

More Boheme madness (see email text i have received)!

How many canapes do you need to eat to cover £88?!

Does meeting artists mean Angela and Roberto? Or just the handbag dog?

Very nice to be asked but still £88!

"We are delighted that you will be attending La bohème on 19 June, and would like to invite you to join us for a special event around the performance. We would like to make this evening really special for you and your guest. This is a unique opportunity and I hope that you will choose to join us.

The event will begin at 6.45pm in the Crush Room for pre-performance drinks, and you are invited to return to the Crush Room for both intervals for drinks and canapés when we will be joined by guests from the production teams. Following the performance, you are invited to come to the amphitheatre bar and meet some of the artists who will have performed that evening. There will also be further refreshments. The evening should finish shortly before midnight.

The cost for the event is £88 per person including VAT, which covers the cost of catering and service. With the exciting cast and this much loved production, I cannot think of a better opportunity to celebrate.

To accept this invitation, please reply to this email with your phone number, so I or a colleague can follow up with a telephone call and take payment details. There is a limited number of spaces, so please get in touch with us soon.

With all best wishes

Susan Fisher
Head of Friends"

[Rannaldini]

I guess people that don;t like it will just get-up and leave for the repeated bit and it will be filmed to an empty house? A which point - it will be interesting to record the broadcast and see if they use "canned applause" because there's no-one there.
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Intermezzo replies - I'm sure a lot of the audience will stay because they want to 'be on TV'. Televised Proms always attract a certain element for that reason.

[Kit Gill]

I will assume "du" isn't a word in this context, and he is the only three word name I might have stayed for (no not really). If its the other one I will be blowing my vuvuzela throughout.
Seriously though: how can they claim any artistic credibility if they slam an amateur repeat of an entire act in the middle of a performance? What are they saying to the conductor and performers who may actually be trying to create a dramatic whole with (god help us) a real attempt at telling a story and maintaining dramatic tension. This is beyond farcical and shaming. And not just shaming to the ROH - I am ashamed for myself that my country's premier opera organisation is sinking so low.

[AddledPaul]

A gentle trickle of tickets being returned judging by the ROH website - if anybody is looking for a ticket...

[Kit Gill]

Apparently the interval is after Act 2, so we will be able to leave and have longer to spend more money at the bar. Still annoying though.

[Rannaldini]

Really - why on earth would anyone want to be on television, except under sufferance? I can't think of anything worse.

[Edward George]

Skipping the re-run, an hour's interval is quite a long break for Boheme (almost half the opera).

Is Maestro simply an entertainment show or is it meant to be educational too? Did the last series of Maestro encourage people to find out more about classical music or give further insight into the conductor's role?

The BBC website gives no clues for future episodes, but the TV schedule for Friday shows no follow up after the episode. What about re-running Tony Pappano's Opera Italia documentary? Or What Makes a Great Tenor/Soprano? Why not build an audience during the first two weeks of screening by displaying a number during the programme to attend a concert conducted by the Maestro contestants (maybe at the ROH for a fiver a ticket, for example). Will the final episode, featuring Act 2 of Boheme, be followed by a screening of the whole opera? (The free, open air BP screening will have been and gone by that point, assuming the final episode is shown on 18th May.) There could have been a real opportunity for the BBC and ROH to collaborate, create a unique event and attract some new audiences. I hope that they succeed, but at this point, it look like a bit of a missed opportunity and they've only succeeded in annoying some audience members.

[Simon Thomas]

It reminds me of the performance I attended of Peter Grimes (with Vickers) in 1981 I think it was. At the end of Act 2 we were turfed out into the street for half an hour while they re-filmed it (you can clearly see the break on the video). Mind you, in those days the prices were decreased when cameras were in, to cover just this sort of situation (and they were a bloody sight cheaper in the first place). This seems a bit of a shabby decision, based on having a captive audience. I'd stand in the street on Saturday, I think, rather than watch the same act again badly conducted.

[MikeG]

Hmnnn, I think one or two people need to "lighten up" a bit!

In my experience, most of the audience for La Boheme is there for a "good night out". A bit of additional excitement over some TV filming will just add to their overall enjoyment.

There is of course a long history of immediately repeating some or all of a performance, going back to Beethoven and earlier. Music and opera is entertainment, after all!

Would you complain about an "evening interrupted" if Florez or Netrebko reprised their major aria? Or at the endless repeats of popular "tunes" at the Arena di Verona? I suspect not.

Of course it is rather unusual to swap out the conductor and half of the cast for such encores :-) But my advice to the audience would be to enjoy the music, treat yourself to an extra drink in the interval and above all have fun!

[Julian Hopkins]

FROM THE CINEWORLD WEBSITE

Cineworld Opera Season
La Boheme
Running time: 105 mins
Conductor: Giacomo Puccini

No question - the Copley production has been around a long time!

Julian Hopkins

[Simon Thomas]

A refreshingly different viewpoint Mike but I guess the difference is something that's done in order to benefit the audience or to serve the self-interest of the producer. Making the best of it shouldn't really be necessary when you've paid through the nose in the first place.

[Kit Gill]

Though usually a cynic, I don't underestimate the ROH audience as you do. I think they are there to enjoy the art form. Would the National Theatre repeat an act of a play midstream with a drama school cast in this way? I think not.

The long history you refer to is in fact a long history of *formalising* the audience experience, post-Wagner and the idea of the "Gesamtkunstwerk" and into the verismo period of true-life drama you simply don't interrupt the performance as if it were a musical variety show.

So "lighten-up": yes the world is not ending and I am not going to increase my blood pressure medication. But I make no apology for taking the art form of opera seriously, and expecting the ROH to do the same.

[Miriam]

I am not going tomorrow, but if I were doing so the additional half hour that has been added to the running time because of this would mean getting home at 1am instead of midnight, with an extra half hour spent hanging about at Victoria Station which is not much fun. I would therefore not be very happy about it, and so I can sympathise with others who will be in a similar position. As SJT has already written, this is a night when many from the provinces are likely to be there, for those who live and work outside London Saturday may be the only day they can go.

[Simon Thomas]

Of course Mike's right in that a lot of people (the majority perhaps?) go to the opera more as a social occasion than anything (champagne and canapes with a bit of opera thrown in). For them, this may all add to the fun (might even be a relief from an evening of unadulterated opera). People on this forum represent a small minority and the ROH may have calculated that any upset to them is offset by the accepting majority. The changing of the goalposts is hardly customer-centric but they may well be prepared to give full refunds to anyone unhappy with the new arrangement. You can never please all the people all the time. Opera enthusiasts sometimes forget that they are a small segment of the customer base, even if they attend a disproportionate number of performances (probably at lower prices than average) and are certainly a vocal one. I'm not saying that the ROH don't or shouldn't care about them but that they have to factor in that the hardcore generate a small proportion of overall income. Miriam, the practical point you make is probably the main reason that the management's decision is inconsiderate towards the most important people involved: the customers, whatever their operatic sensibilities.

[hippoes]

To be fair, ROH always said this show would start half an hour earlier (7pm rather than 7.30pm for all the others) so that it would finish at the usual time, even adding the Maestro bit (which we thought would have been at the end, not in the middle). It should be over by 10.20, which is pretty much the norm. Hopefully the Maestro winner will do a Strict 78rpm version, like the recent Rigoletto, and finish even earlier.

[Rannaldini]

With respect Mike - and I see where you're coming from - its nothing to do with lightening up. This is just the latest in a whole and progressive series of administration issues from ROH. Without recounting the lot - see further back on this blog and many other blogs too - its the whole attitude. Its the whole way that they act with so little imagination and common-sense - with events always seeming to rush up on them - with an attitude that appears to take their funding (public element at-least) and their audience for granted.

There are many recent examples - threatening legal action against fans and bloggers ironically trying to promote interest and passion in the ROH's own stage - an amateurish and poorly executed new website that is really been embarrassingly done - retrospectively changing peoples booking terms and conditions - to name but a few.

Its just another example of no-one seeming to "own" the house. Really leading and driving it forward with good practical common-sense. its gives the impression of a collective of small fiefdoms that don;t really relate to eachother, or am I imagining that?

[DESR]

Anyone else had an unsolicited call from the ROH today about this?
***********************************
Intermezzo replies - what did they say?

[DESR]

I have just had an unsolicited call from Susan Fisher Head of the Friends, who said she had 'seen some of the comments you have been making online', with an offer to refund the cost of the tickets if I don't want to go today. No offer to find an alternative date, because she said in her message that it is sold out. And when I called her back, we had what turned into one of those non-apology apology type conversations!

I guess I am grateful she called, she was certainly polite, but it didn't really help me much, and the party line was spun with little engagement in the facts of this case - or attempt to understand why people might be cross, and with justification. As far as they are concerned, things have just 'changed'. And those who are complaining are suspected of being part of the anti-dumbing down brigade (i.e. Daily Mail readers - oh I know, the irony!), and all the more easily dismissible as such. Any criticism is met with the insinuation that one is a spoilsport, or a snob, or want the stagehands to work Dickensian hours etc etc. To be fair, she did not voice these last sentiments, but she did suggest that I seemed 'determined only to see the negative side of this', and that a small number of people only were exercised about this. I pointed out that I have never complained before, that I was previously quite happy to stay and watch the repeat at the end of the performance, and that they were in danger of causing a number of self-inflicted wounds which give the impression of incompetence mixed with an increasingly cavalier attitude to the most loyal supporters.

If this was the view from the Head of the Friends, who presumably is paid to care about our views, I'm not sure what the rest of them must be planning next!

[Frances]

desr.. just as a matter of interest how did Susan recognize you from "DESR"and know how to phone you?

[AddledPaul]

"they were in danger of causing a number of self-inflicted wounds which give the impression of incompetence mixed with an increasingly cavalier attitude to the most loyal supporters."

Excellently put.

They are so casual - but with so many Friends they worry not that they are losing friends.

[Manou]

Hot off the presses (or really cold and wet off the streets) - I am just back from the Bobohème and can report it all went very well indeed!

We were sitting in the Stalls Circle next to a nice cameraman, and on the other side of the aisle sat the three non-winning tyro conductors. Tony Hall spoke to us first from the stage and explained what was going to happen. We duly had the repeat Act II (a largish group of people in the centre of the stalls walked out during the short intermission before the repeat), and then the winner turned up and made a fairly good fist of marshalling all the crowds, the kids, the waiters, the dog, and the Jette Parker lot. No vuvuzuelas, and generally great good humoured cheers at the end.

The "normal" performance was a delight, and Calleja just brilliant.

Everyone went home happy and the Royal Opera House was still standing when I last looked at it.

[Pushed Up Mezzo]

Just back from the offending performance after being sworn to secrecy by Tony Hall. Sadly a rather complacent audience - even the 4 Maestro contestants left their front row seats after Act 2 never to return. The winner kept it together quite well and I greatly preferred the Young Artist Marcello and Musetta. Calleja is such a stunning, mellifluous and sensitive singer ( getting across every Italian syllable) that I can't moan too much about the rest. But with all the intervals, pauses and speeches it did get to feel as long as Gotterdammerung by the finish. Some perceptive remarks on the TV show on Telegraph website.

[DESR]

The House is indeed still standing - the foundations are solid enough but the current tenants need to be aware that there is such a thing as a break clause!

The programme asked people to remain their seats but Tony Hall made clear that people could leave if they wished. The fact that unusually he came out and spoke, rather than the Kasper Holten, was revealing. Unprompted, the lady I spoke to at the box office said that the musicians had been grumbling about it and that it had been 'badly mishandled'. They had obviously been at the sharp end of management decisions. I would say that more than 200 people left, and there was a big hole in the middle of the stalls.

I did stay for the repeat, feeling that I had no desire for even more interval time (madly they have two intervals anyway, including one between acts three and four), and because despite my anger about this from an artistic, dramatic and customer relations point of view I wanted to see how it came off. Much to my surprise, the answer was it did not fall apart. Mr [STRICTLY redacted] was using a score, the tempi were mostly on the deliberate side (even compared to Bychkov!), he engaged in some fairly boilerplate conductor gesturing but he had clearly been well drilled, knew the piece, and they had found a way of making sure the big moments held together, give or take. The young singers did well, but apart from a promising turn from Musetta (Madeleine Pierard), who looked the part rather more than Nuccia Focile in the main cast, nothing remarkable to note.

As a result, the evening was seriously protracted and it did spoil the flow, and one only gradually got back into it. The audience was a typical Saturday night one: 'provincials', date nights etc in greater than normal numbers. John Copley, who was there, must be gratified that 38 years on, the opening to act 3 in the snow was still greeted by very audible oohs and aahs. No one actually applauded the scenery though!

[Manou]

The other contestants did leave after Act II (probably for interviews, etc.), but one of them returned with a posse of BBC suits and ejected those people who had migrated to the seats left vacant.

The poor tenor who replaced Calleja had mighty shoes to fill...

[amac4165]

I came past ROH last night on my way home as they were streaming out - was going to ask someone who won - but suddenly remembered I did not really give a [redacted] anyway.

[Kit Gill]

There must have been at least 200 of us in the Amphi Bar for the extended interval, leaving the majority to revel in the additional act, though whether revel is strictly true I couldn't say. As expected the speech from Tony was a massive guilt trip about encouraging new opera goers. I was hosting 3 new opera goers that night, and they had to sit through one and a half hours of interval for 2 hours (or so) of Boheme: not a great introduction. I did get a no questions asked refund on the night though on one of the tickets when a guest chose not to endure the event.

[JHS]

That's odd if there were 200 in the amphitheatre bar as I counted the same in the Paul Hamlyn Hall yet the ROH appears to have told the Evening Standard it was no more than 100 who did not stay.