On-screen opera: when do I clap?

Have you been to a live HD telecast outside in the piazza or in your local cinema? Well The Times' Richard Morrison has, and addresses a problem lots of us are grappling with:

As performances are increasingly transmitted live to cinemas, a dilemma raises its head: is it OK to applaud?

No longer do you need to take out an extra mortgage to see world-class opera performed live. More and more is coming to a multiplex near you…

… There's just one dilemma. What's the etiquette for watching opera in the cinema? At Covent Garden a famous aria wonderfully sung is literally a showstopper. The audience will erupt with cheers. And nobody (except critics with deadlines) leaves during the curtain-calls. Watching a prima donna make her artfully coy curtsy is often better than the show itself.

But shouting “bravissima!” in your local Odeon? It's hard not to feel like a prat. Even clapping at the end can seem incongruous. Yet why? After all, one joy of watching anything in the cinema, rather than on a DVD at home, is the sense of communal enjoyment. We all laugh together during comedies and gasp together during thrillers. So why not clap together at the end of an opera? Whether you sit through the heartache of La bohème or the gory thrills of Salome, you need the physical and psychological release. To bottle it up is bad for your blood pressure….

read all via The Times

Gramilano( Editor )

Graham Spicer is a writer, director and photographer in Milan, blogging (under the name ‘Gramilano') about dance, opera, music and photography for people “who are a bit like me and like some of the things I like”. He was a regular columnist for Opera Now magazine and wrote for the BBC until transferring to Italy.

His scribblings have appeared in various publications from Woman's Weekly to Gay Times, and he wrote the ‘Danza in Italia' column for Dancing Times magazine.