Times are a' changin'...
A few days ago, I went to the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre's production of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker with my good friend and bridesmaid, Sarah. We put on fabulous outfits, went to a delicious cafe for brunch and then headed downtown to the Byham Theatre. I remember going to see The Nutcracker as a child and just loving it. Going to see it again as an adult was just as enjoyable. The talented ballet dancers just amaze me as I never get tired of seeing the magic of ballerinas dance en pointe.
I was however, a bit put off by something that happened.
I wasn't put off by the selling of roasted nuts for patrons to snack on (it is The Nutcracker after all) or the slight hum of little kids talking excitedly throughout the performance.
No.
I was put off by the complete failure of the audience to clap at appropriate times.
Go ahead and roll your eyes and call me a snob. I know I'm being difficult.
The Nutcracker is a piece of classical music and the Sugar Plum Fairies, the Marzipan Dancers, etc., all perform to several small movements that comprise the whole Nutcracker suite. It was performed by symphonies before it was a stage production where dancers danced to recorded versions of it.
When I went to see the ballet as a child, I remember wondering why no one clapped after each dance in the second act when Marie visits the wonderland with her Nutcracker prince. After all, the music stopped, the performers were done and were leaving the stage. On the way home, I remember asking my parents why no one clapped until the very end of the ballet. They explained the rules of clapping during classical music performances. I learned that you don't clap after each movement. You clap at the end of the entire piece even though there are short pauses after movements that seem to be loaded silences.
I applied that new knowledge many times over the years when I went to the symphony.
At The Nutcracker this past week, not only were people clapping after every movement, the performers actually BOWED on stage before they left in acknowledgement of the audience's applause.
What in the world was happening?!
A little Googling revealed an article written in 2007 by the Pittsburgh Post Gazette about the "easing up" on "archaic" rules about when to clap during a classical music performance.
Not only is it okay to clap when you feel like it now, it is being accepted by performers, as well, as indicated by the Sugar Plum Fairies when they trotted up to the edge of the stage after their performance to bow.
Apparently I am late to the "oh, relax and clap when you feel like it" clapping party.
I get it. It's the casual ballet. It does make everything seem more fun and relaxed.... I guess.
But that doesn't mean I like it.
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erikdolnack
Believe it or not, but I’ve never seen a live ballet performance.
However, I am a movies guy. Movies are my passion. Motion pictures, as a cultural phenomenon really caught on after the Great Depression. There were cinemas before that, and people made “movies” before then. But it was when a large portion of the public had very little money to spend and were hungry for some kind of escapism from their dreary, difficult everyday lives that the movies really took off and blossomed into the industry that we know today. Thus, motion pictures is a middle-class/working-class artform. Ballet, however, is not.
Should audiences clap during a movie? I’ve been to movies where the audience has clapped, booed, cheered, and screamed aloud in theaters. In my mind, that means the movie was successful to the audience: they cared enough to openly respond. In the past, (back when movies were very good, and had great scripts) I remember many movies where the audience applauded in a loud cheer at the end of “Star Wars”, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” or “JAWS”. It’s rare you see that anymore. Many movie-goers today leave the theater wondering if what they saw was “good” or not.
I think what is happening in American society today, is that many college educated professionals are getting societal promotions in the class structure, but they come from lower-class backgrounds. They have good paying corporate positions, but deep down they’re still small town working-class folk. They thus (like me) never grew up attending ‘cultural’ events such as ballet.
There’s this bizarre blend today of rednecks and corporate executives. You see top-billing rock & roll concerts with corporate-box seating for hundreds of dollars. Rock music isn’t high-brow art. At least it isn’t supposed to be. Rock & roll is for middle-class lower-class kids (or should be). No one should be spending upwards of $200 for a rock concert, no matter who’s performing.
It’s a strange and upside down world we live in today when corporate executives take their wives out for the town to a reunited Allman Brothers concert, and the young people with lesser jobs are going to see a Tchaikovsky ballet it blue jeans.
Lest anyone accuse me of having no class, my reply is that I grew up in Beaver County in a small low-rent home in a blue-collar working-class town. My culture is Star Wars and video-games. And what’s wrong with that? It is who I am.
Therein lies my point: I’m not trying to be something I’m not. I’m proud to be the same social class as my parents. We couldn’t afford ballet when we were growing up. We stayed home and watched “A Charlie Brown Christmas” on TV instead. I’d probably be the idiot clapping between scenes in a ballet, but then I don’t go. I’ll be at home this year quoting along to A Charlie Brown Christmas verbatim instead.
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Before you gripe about my comment, I will acknowledge that I’m actually getting tired of correcting you, myself, Ms. Turkovich. With some simple proof reading, we could avoid this whole routine we’ve fallen into.
I’ll make this brief and point out only one of your many lazy errors. You write that you went to a delicious cafe for brunch. I’m sure you meant that you went to a cafe for a delicious brunch. Unless the cafe was made of gingerbread, I’m certain it was not “delicious.”
I again implore you to please proofread!
Regards and happy new year!
Hello Knitty
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Knitty - I see your point and acknowledge that how I use “delicious” can read as a typo. However, “delicious” is defined by Merriam-Webster as meaning “highly pleasant to the taste” and “delightful.”
I use “delicious,” in line with one of its definitions, to describe many non-edible things. Examples: “Those shoes are DELICIOUS! Where did you get them?” “We went to the most DELICIOUS little boutique yesterday to do some shopping.” It’s goofy. I know. Thank you for the feedback.
Eric - Where in Beaver County did you grow up? I grew up there too and am very much from a blue collar family as well.
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I stand corrected. But that doesn’t mean I like it.
