If scruffy protestors invade the shrines of high culture, I guess this counts as asymmetrical culture war: The Usual Grotesques
So there I was, in the middle of the opening night of Tannhäuser at the Metropolitan Opera, when the shouting started. “Climate protesters,” or “climate activists”—the usual grotesques—were shouting “No opera on a dead planet,” and other such inanities. They placed themselves around the theater, timing it so that when one was arrested, another started shouting somewhere else. I counted five interruptions, though the first press reports say there were only four; did I get it wrong? The audience was displeased; I heard shouts of shame! and even, briefly from one member of the audience, U.S.A.! U.S.A.! The management finally announced that the program would go on no matter what, keeping the lights on so that security could remove people more quickly; either the thugs were exhausted, or the remainder figured that it wasn’t worth bothering with. So we finished the opera, with too much light, and (at least for me) some nervousness at every loud noise, thinking it might be another interruption.
There have been at least two previous intrusions at operas, in Amsterdam and Milan.
Music performances of this kind are somewhat fragile--it doesn't take much to shatter the necessary atmosphere and ruin the performance. If we think this kind of asymmetrical culture war is illegitimate, how do we combat it? Without actually crippling the exercise of culture by the burden of security measures? I'm not sure there is an easy answer to this.
I am flabbergasted that these screamers think their offenses will win any sympathy to their cause. As someone who takes climate change seriously, I am embarrassed and disgusted with such hooligans. Consider the number of ticket holders whose experience was married, the thousands of hours of preparation by the singers, orchestra, set makers and costume makers...I would sentence each disruptor to a day in jail for each of these victims. That adds up to harsh penalty, perhaps therefore commuted after a reasonable punishing incarceration, but it should still be enumerated in the sentencing exactly how many people were violated for the sake of these peoples' tantrums.
ReplyDeleteMARRED, not married! What kind of stupid autocorrect are you running here! A day in jail just for that!
ReplyDeleteThis keeps going on because, except possibly in Germany, I don't think any of these protestors have been punished.
ReplyDeleteAn excerpt from the review that boggles the mind. Well, mine, anyway:
ReplyDelete“It was understandable that some in the audience had been dismayed by the disruption of their night out, but it was difficult to shake the angrily bothered, even violent response from others toward the protesters. Did they consider that “Tannhäuser” comes from the most politically active time in Wagner’s life, his years in Dresden, Germany, which ended with his fleeing after the May Uprising in 1849? Did they clock that when the performance resumed, it was with the scene of a whole hall turning against Tannhäuser for an ode that to him rings of truth, and to them of heresy?”
I am a committed partisan of the movement to bring stocks and pillories and whatnot back into use in order to punish such people.
ReplyDeleteI'll sign that petition!
ReplyDelete