# Does Anyone Else Worry About This?



## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

I'm trying to figure out whether this is a concern others have, or if it's in fact a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. When you're watching a performance in an opera house, do you ever worry what others around you are thinking of the opera/the performance/the operatic genre in general? For instance, do you worry that a complete newcomer to opera might be thinking something along the lines of "This is so silly. I can't understand how anyone can be crazy about opera," or that someone who does understand and love opera but is new to the particular work is thinking something like, "I'm really confused (or bored)" or "This production is too way-out (or traditional). _Or_ do you simply enjoy the performance, never giving a single thought as to what others are thinking? (If so, I sincerely wish I could be more like you! If anyone is in this last category, maybe he/she can give me some advice on how to stop caring what others think! Thanks.)


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I don't think about what anyone in particular might be thinking, but I almost never watch anything without flashing an occasional glance at my companion to see if they're enjoying something or laughing in the right places. It is a form of self-consciousness & also self-protection, as in my childhood, I had to keep my eyes on my tyrannical father's reactions or I might be 'for it'. 

It's too ingrained for me to change the habit now. I am far less bothered by what strangers might think of a production, though.


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

I confess I have never spared a single thought on this, while attending an opera in the theater.


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## Ravndal (Jun 8, 2012)

I have heard of this. I suggest you personally work with. Care less what others think, and don't let it affect your personal opinion. Shield yourself from others thoughts.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Last time in opera house I was sitting next to young girl who didn't look like habitue and I was so emotional about imagining her catch up with the music or not catching up that when less exciting moments/recitatives occured I was all like "hold on, girl, wait till next number! you'll love it!" inside and whenever she looked bored I felt like grabbing her, shaking intensely while yelling DON'T GIVE UP ON OPERA 

Or when I listen to opera in warm season, with my window widely opend and in full volume, I always wonder what people passing under might think and imagine changing their lives by exposing them to opera through the window. 

So can I join your club, Bellinilover.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Ravndal said:


> I have heard of this. I suggest you personally work with. Care less what others think, and don't let it affect your personal opinion. Shield yourself from others thoughts.


I have a feeling that my problem is related to the fact that I have a certain fear of seeming "elitest" (think "Frasier and Niles Crane"). Especially today we're led to believe (at least here in the US) that opera is, or should be, _for everyone_. But I think it's pretty obvious that opera, like other art forms, requires a certain amount of _preparation_, of effort on the would-be audience member's part, to appreciate it fully. I suspect that some people where I live go to the opera simply because it's a social event or a "status" thing and have little interest in or knowledge about the art form itself. Since I _do_ have an interest in the art form, and have done (or try to do) the preparation necessary to get the most out of a performance, I tend to conclude that I must be some sort of snob or something. This makes absolutely no sense, I know, but it is a sort of trap I've fallen into mentally.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I don't give any thought as to what other audience members might be thinking. My sole concern is that they shut up.


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

I assume that everyone who is there is there because they want to see the opera so, nope, I'm not holding my breath for others. However I am touched if I see others respond as I do to lovely moments.


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## TurnaboutVox (Sep 22, 2013)

Not at concerts or operas, no, because I assume everyone is there of their own free will, but I used to worry a little about music I was playing on the hi-fi being overheard because some of it was unusual by 'real world' standards (TC is somewhat different and here my musical taste seems rather conservative!).

I must say that having achieved a certain age with a certain experience of the world I now realise that as long as I'm not disturbing someone, my musical choices are of no importance to anyone but myself.

I don't think it is a symptom of OCD, no, just an ordinary and fairly common misapprehension that strangers - other people - care in the slightest about what you listen to. I'd just enjoy the music.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

No, never have. The overall audience reaction is telling enough, if one is concerned about that sort of thing.

*You do realize, every moment you are busy with those thoughts that you are missing the performance you've paid good money to see and hear?*

Try this -- almost everyone in that hall made the effort to purchase a ticket, go out, and be in attendance at that performance. That should tell you enough that you could, then, stop worrying about, 'what each and all of them think."


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

But of course opera is _for everyone_.

For everyone interested, that is. It's true than in the popular imaginarium Opera can be the realm of socialites and rich people, usually with little or no interest in the art form at all. And there was some truth to this in the past, I think. But not today.

Today, opera can be easily approached. Mostly everything (with some exceptions, of course) is there in the Internet. There are also tons of CDs and DVDs. And going to the opera (for those of us that live in a place with an Opera house) is even cheaper than going to watch a football match!.

So, in my view, there is nothing "elitist" here. Yes, Opera is for minorities in many countries, because is a long, complex, art form, and it requires, for most people, some effort to grasp at least the basics (and also music is not the forte of many education programs). But being for minorities is not the same as being "elitist".


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

Bellinilover said:


> I suspect that some people where I live go to the opera simply because it's a social event or a "status" thing and have little interest in or knowledge about the art form itself.


having overheard many conversations at the opera, my feeling is that, as always it's both. I've heard as many enthusiastic or knowledgeable comments before the opera or during the intermission as I've heard people talk big so that their neighbours know they have seen this production 345845 times. I don't know where you normally sit, but I sit in the slips a lot and there you find a lot of regular people who are clearly there because they want to see that particular opera. Many people go by themselves, old and young. I've seen people bend forwards in concentration, others cry (which is pointless to fake in the dark), lots of people laugh. Trust me, most people want to be there for the music.


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## Kieran (Aug 24, 2010)

I know what the audience around me were thinking when I fell asleep and snorted during _Madame Butterfly_. I was awake - she was alive - and without any more ado she was dead, and the gaff was in uproar and I was wheeling my feet demanding the channel be changed back to what I was watching. :lol:

Yeah, them folks were fairly transparent in their thinking. But usually I'm not too distracted by the people around me, I'm more absorbed in the performance (well, more than I was that night!)...


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

Actually for me it's slightly different...

I wonder what my younger self would have made the opera I'm watching if it was my first. I suspect my less operatic self would have been baffled and unimpressed with many of the things I see and appreciate now. Some operas are not obviously tuneful, some productions are dull and obtuse.

I'd like to think that for first-timers it doesn't amount to a simple thumbs-up or down, the start or finish of their opera-going. 

I've just returned from two nights of opera, the first of them was dull and disappointing, whilst last night's thrilled and captivated the audience and I think would have made a positive impression on a newcomer.


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

I may be interested in hearing people around me discussing the performance during the intermission break, but when the opera itself is in progress, my thoughts are concentrated on it and not on anyone else around me. (Unless, as Bulldog alluded to, they're whispering back and forth, and in that case, what I'm thinking about them can't be repeated in polite company.)


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Bulldog said:


> I don't give any thought as to what other audience members might be thinking. My sole concern is that they shut up.


It sort of amazes me how many people seem to think it's okay to talk, albeit in a low voice, after the performance has begun (and, yes, the overture or prelude is part of the performance -- some people seem not to know that!). True, the singers onstage surely can't hear the people talking, and I won't say it's a _huge_ distraction for me, but still I was always told that it's rude to talk during a performance, period.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

deggial said:


> having overheard many conversations at the opera, my feeling is that, as always it's both. I've heard as many enthusiastic or knowledgeable comments before the opera or during the intermission as I've heard people talk big so that their neighbours know they have seen this production 345845 times. I don't know where you normally sit, but I sit in the slips a lot and there you find a lot of regular people who are clearly there because they want to see that particular opera. Many people go by themselves, old and young. I've seen people bend forwards in concentration, others cry (which is pointless to fake in the dark), lots of people laugh. Trust me, most people want to be there for the music.


I'm afraid I don't know the term "slips." If it's the British English term for sitting upstairs, then that's where I normally sit, too. Not only is it cheaper, but I like how the voices project up there. But what I've decided I'm going to have to do is invest in a pair of opera glasses, because just the other day at ARIADNE AUF NAXOS I was sitting in the third-to-last row of the upstairs section and found myself really wanting to see the expressions on the singers' faces.

I know what you mean about ridiculous audience members. For me the one that took the cake was the woman who regaled the shuttle bus (this was following a performance of NORMA last March; a bunch of us were on a bus heading back to the subway station) with a lot of misinformation in a VERY LOUD VOICE. Everyone else was staring at her in disbelief, and I seriously felt like telling her to shut up. I think she might have been slightly drunk, though. Then there was the guy the other day who, after the opera was over, sat there telling his seatmates how bored he'd been. What he didn't seem to realize, until the woman in front of me informed him of the fact, was that he was blocking our way out of the row! He looked pretty embarrassed, so there's that consolation.:devil:


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## deggial (Jan 20, 2013)

yes, slips it's up in the Amphitheatre - lower slips and upper slips, both very good places to sit if you, as you said, don't mind not seeing the singers' expressions. I'm blind as a bat on top of it all so I usually resign myself to DVDs.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Last time I went to watch a cultural event - a broadcast of Coriolanus - with my wife, I looked to see how she was enjoying it and found she wax fast asleep! The only thing that worried me was that I had paid £10.50 for her admission and she wasn't getting her money's worth!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I have no problem whatever what other audience members think. They are unknown to me and I to them. I do have a problem with people whispering, eating, opening cans, rustling papers and making other extraneous noises during a performance. Parliament should pass an act making the eating of popcorn during a performance of anything illegal! I noticed during the broadcast of DG some woman chewing on an enormous bag of popcorn - that during an opera! To add insult to injury they have now abandoned selling popcorn in boxes. It now comes in large bags which rustle as the hand enters and leaves. So the disturbance is doubled. On my own Gilbertian 'little list' popcorn eaters would be near the top!


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## Dongiovanni (Jul 30, 2012)

When I was younger I cared about this, and was more reluctant to talk about my passion for opera and classical music. But not so much anymore. 

When the performance is good, I am totally lost in it, no time to think about anything else. Occasionally I am distracted by people who don't seem to care for the performance. Latecomers who miss the first act, and I wonder what on earth was more important then the first act. But that's it.


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

I'm not concerned about what the audience think but I do worry for the singers. If one has to sing a really difficult aria, I keep my fingers crossed that they'll sing all the notes and in the right order (Mr Preview)


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## Romantiker (Feb 23, 2014)

I don't wonder about what they might be thinking. I am concerned about what they are saying and want them to stop. Once at a Met on tour production of _Der Rosenkavalier_in Detroit in the 1970s the couple seated behind me stumbled in drunk a minute or two late. The man said rather loudly, "Oh, crap. An opera about lesbians." Better to think it than to say it. In the same decade, at a concert version of _Salome_, a man seated ahead of me counted out loud the members of the orchestra. And when all 95 of them went fortissimo he just got louder so that his companion (and everyone else around) would not miss the news that nobody wanted to hear. That Strauss, so loud you cannot even hear yourself think.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

*Romantiker:* I guess the first guy had never heard of a trouser role? Or in his drunken state he'd forgotten what one was? And the second guy -- lucky the opera wasn't ELEKTRA, or he would have been counting even longer.

But seriously, that's awful. But it does prove that rude, loud audience members are not a brand-new phenomenon.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

Just checking back in to report that my fear of what audience members are thinking seems to have disappeared! I actually got through my last few in-house operas without giving it any thought at all. As it went away "on its own" (and I can't see it coming back), I have to conclude that it was basically a maturity/confidence issue: I'm two years older now than when I made the OP.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Bellinilover said:


> Just checking back in to report that my fear of what audience members are thinking seems to have disappeared! I actually got through my last few in-house operas without giving it any thought at all. As it went away "on its own" (and I can't see it coming back), I have to conclude that it was basically a maturity/confidence issue: I'm two years older now than when I made the OP.


And two years the wiser.


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## Annied (Apr 27, 2017)

sospiro said:


> I'm not concerned about what the audience think but I do worry for the singers. If one has to sing a really difficult aria, I keep my fingers crossed that they'll sing all the notes and in the right order (Mr Preview)


I've done that too.

Mostly I'm more concentrating on keeping still. There's a frustrated dancer in me (strong sense of rhythm, body like an iron bar), and the urge to move whenever I hear music is very strong.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Bellinilover said:


> It sort of amazes me how many people seem to think it's okay to talk, albeit in a low voice, after the performance has begun (and, yes, the overture or prelude is part of the performance -- some people seem not to know that!). True, the singers onstage surely can't hear the people talking, and I won't say it's a _huge_ distraction for me, but still I was always told that it's rude to talk during a performance, period.


I figure that those who talk during a concert/opera performance also talk during a movie and likely all day long. The big mouths of the world always think that every word from their lips has importance.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

schigolch said:


> I confess I have never spared a single thought on this, while attending an opera in the theater.


Me neither.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Bulldog said:


> I figure that those who talk during a concert/opera performance also talk during a movie and likely all day long. The big mouths of the world always think that every word from their lips has importance.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Bulldog said:


> I figure that those who talk during a concert/opera performance also talk during a movie and likely all day long. The big mouths of the world always think that every word from their lips has importance.


I used to think it would be a wonderful learning experience if everyone would stop talking for about a month and be forced to communicate through facial expressions, gestures, touch, and writing. But nowadays all that would happen would be that everyone would spend all day texting, and no one would learn a damned thing. Still, the quiet would be a blessing, and no one would be texting me.


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## Judith (Nov 11, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I used to think it would be a wonderful learning experience if everyone would stop talking for about a month and be forced to communicate through facial expressions, gestures, touch, and writing. But nowadays all that would happen would be that everyone would spend all day texting, and no one would learn a damned thing. Still, the quiet would be a blessing, and no one would be texting me.


That would be so hard as I'm a known chatterbox!

Once did a "sponsored silence" and it nearly killed me lol!


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## Jacred (Jan 14, 2017)

Back to the OP, the closest feeling I have to what you've described is when I show a piece of classical music to my less classically inclined friends. I check their body language every once in a while to see if they're comfortable or if they've caught on to a particularly impressive part of the music.

I believe what some of the posters have been saying about not caring so much about what others think is sound advice. It can be hard, though!--especially when you don't want others to be left with a bad impression of the music that you've come to appreciate.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Jacred said:


> Back to the OP, the closest feeling I have to what you've described is when I show a piece of classical music to my less classically inclined friends. I check their body language every once in a while to see if they're comfortable or if they've caught on to a particularly impressive part of the music.
> 
> I believe what some of the posters have been saying about not caring so much about what others think is sound advice. It can be hard, though!--especially when you don't want others to be left with a bad impression of the music that you've come to appreciate.


I know exactly what you mean! I sometimes take my piano students to concerts with me, so that they can experience classical music live. I often feel a bit anxious during these concerts; I so much want my students to enjoy the music and to appreciate its beauty. Luckily, most of them do seem to enjoy the concerts that we attend together - although they would never dare tell their friends how they spent Saturday night!!


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Bettina said:


> I know exactly what you mean! I sometimes take my piano students to concerts with me, so that they can experience classical music live. I often feel a bit anxious during these concerts; I so much want my students to enjoy the music and to appreciate its beauty. Luckily, most of them do seem to enjoy the concerts that we attend together - although they would never dare tell their friends how they spent Saturday night!!


Unless they become famous , then they brag about the things they saw as a student.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Well, you can always overhear what other people in the audience are saying about the opera or the performance during the intermissions and right after the performance , and you can politely introduce yourself to them and have a discussion .


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## Suwannee Tim (Jun 6, 2010)

I have some years ago reached the glorious state of not giving a rat's *** what other people think of me or my music. I do however have to confess, after being stricken with Diana Damrau and her interpretation of the Queen of the Night, I bought the DVD. And there I was, watching, listening to the complete opera for the first time and thinking about the plot. Which plot is absurd and preposterous and made me wonder about myself. What bothered me was I was thinking of myself as something of a nut for buying into Die Zauberflöte. Then I remember I don't give a rat's *** what anyone thinks which includes myself so I was cool with it.


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## dnitzer (May 1, 2017)

I like hearing my neighbors' opinions during intermission or afterwards, if it shows they were watching or listening to the opera. I like hearing different reactions, or their stories or ideas. It makes the intermission more interesting. A few times I've been seated to someone who was new to opera, and that's always interesting to see their reactions. One was a performance of Don Giovanni, and she sort of knew the story from the program book, but of course that's very different from seeing and hearing the finale. When that knock on the door came, and the door was flung open on those d minor chords to reveal the statue, she gave an audible gasp, and then under her breath, "uh-oh." It was priceless and so worth it.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Suwanne Tim, Die Zauberflote is a fairy tale and an allegory written by a composer and librettist who were both freemasons . The opera is full of in jokes , and the queen of the night is supposed to represent Austrian empress what's her name, I can't recall offhand , who was a bitter opponent of the freemasons . 
Sarastro and his followers represent the freemasons .


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

superhorn said:


> Suwanne Tim, Die Zauberflote is a fairy tale and an allegory written by a composer and librettist who were both freemasons . The opera is full of in jokes , and the queen of the night is supposed to represent Austrian empress what's her name, I can't recall offhand , who was a bitter opponent of the freemasons .
> Sarastro and his followers represent the freemasons .


Sissi ( Romy Schneider)perhaps?


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Pugg said:


> Sissi ( Romy Schneider)perhaps?


That was some generations later.


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## SoleilCouchant (May 4, 2017)

No, not me. The only time it was awkward was when I took my sister to one and afterwards when I met up with her (our seats were apart, don't ask) she was rolling her eyes joking about how she was glad it was over, I was like ...oh. 

But other than that, no. Like others mentioned, I assume most the the people want to be there like I do. They might not like a particular botched production (several I went to, I heard boos at the director/set designer, when those people came out at the end, which was funny because in my mind I myself was silently booing that aspect too of those particular shows). But for the most part it seemed to me they were opera-lovers.


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