# Have you ever booed a director?



## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

Here I am, 64 years old, having watched live opera since I was 17, and I did something that I had never done before in my life - At opening night of Die Entführung Aus Dem Serail, I gave the director a series of hearty boos.

This auteur-cum-buffoon:

Opened the opera at a long session set at a party after the rescue of Belmonte and friends with lots of dialogue... it seems like the ladies liked being slaves of the Turks.
They continued to talk throughout the overture, which was interrupted twice so we could hear more of his pearls of wisdom.
The action was set on a stage featuring our old friend, the movable concrete block. Stagehands made themselves visible to all every time it needed to be moved.
Action also stopped at random moments in the play, when we realized that the post-rescue party was still on, and that Blonde wanted to remind Pedrillo how nice Osmin was to her.
Act II began with a mullah singing the whole call to prayer... first as a drawn out solo, but later on during Pedrillo’s aria.
And it all ended when the curtain fell and the four principals grabbed at it, madly trying to get back into slavery.

This was in Toronto. 

About 10% of the audience left at the intermission.

I booed the little weasel director when he came on stage, fortissimo. I was not alone. And it felt damn good!

Have any of you similar stories to share?


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

No, never if it's that bad, either in theatre or movie transmission I simply leave the auditorium.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I missed out on an historic occasion to boo with great gusto. It was at the premiere of the Rite of Spring and Stravinsky had provided the audience with rotten fruit to throw at the performers to create a scandal and gain publicity for himself, known for driving a red Firebird convertible with a Petrushka license plate. Unfortunately, the riot never quite succeeded and the composer and the work were never heard from again. Stravinsky later became Sergei Diaghilev‘s chauffeur and valet. Some scholars have speculated how the 20th-century might have been radically different had the booing succeeded and Victor Herbert not end up dominating the century. 
:angel:


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Unfortunately these buffoons of directors often like booing as they reckon one of their artistic purposes us to upset people who have paid good money to see their lousy productions.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

No. Frankly, most pop productions and singers these days (and for the last 20 years to be honest) are so unapologetically bad, I tend to look at even the worst classical musician as "at least you tried" or "maybe you just had a bad day". I'm not morally opposed to booing a terrible performance, but it's far from the first thing to pop into my head.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Absolutely ... and with great pleasure. The Bondy Tosca. (Shame on him for showing blow jobs to Scarpia, and Scarpia humping the Virgin Mary in church.) Utterly disgraceful production.


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## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

No. There have been times I have not clapped, or even sat back down (if I had been standing) for a director (or even a composer).

But I haven't booed. And I plan on not doing so.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

These days, it's pretty hard *not* to have some idea what you're in for when you go to an opera performance. Whether you've taken advantage of the ample opportunities learn something about the director and/or production beforehand, or you've willfully chosen to take your chances and walk in blind, I don't get how you can pretend to be outraged by what you see.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Booed Castorf Siegfried. The rest of the Ring was passable.


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## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

I've been damn close at times. Most recently, a production of _Hamlet_ where the actor mooned the audience, and mimed m a s t u r b a t i o n / oral sex with a puppet of Claudius's head; and there were gags about used condoms.


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