Live music’s dirty secret

It’s been unintentional, but it struck me recently that I’ve stopped going to the movies. I used to enjoy the dimming of the lights, the giant screen, the hushed concentration that the theater offered. When the hush disappeared, slowly so did I.

There are certain types of features where you’re prepared for having the back of your seat kicked constantly: mostly pictures made by Disney, Pixar or the Harry Potter series. After all, it’s a time honored tradition to dump your kids off at the Saturday matinee. When it’s an adult movie, at the ten o’clock show on Saturday night, I can’t bear the sound of wailing infants. In fact, some of us went on Saturday night to ESCAPE the sound of our wailing infant. My take on it is, if you can’t afford the $15 for a babysitter, you can’t afford the $20 for the tickets, either. And running a baby around at 10 o’clock at night, with a ton of other people, and the oh-so-clean state of most movie theaters—ugh!

Babies are only half the problem, though. The other half is people old enough to know better—senior citizens. Some seem to think they are still sitting in their living rooms, where they apparently talk throughout the programming, and ahem! some of us have become a trifle hard of hearing. Or maybe it’s just that they have to ENTIRELY DROWN OUT the sound of the movie. And when we run out of commentary, some of us just seem to have to find that little piece of wrapped candy (or four or five) that’s wwaaaaayyyy down at the bottom of our purses.

Thanks to a giant screen tv and Netflix, I can now watch a movie with someone who knows how to behave, and the snacks are cheaper chez nous, also. Surely, though, a classical music concert attracts a different audience, no?

Well, maybe an evil fairy waved her wand over the Yo Yo Ma/Chicago Symphony Concert at Ravinia on Saturday night, but the same brigade showed up. The lawn seats there were $20 (special and dare I say cynical increase over the usual $10 for less pop star performances?), so I know the couple on the next blanket had enough dough to cover the babysitter. They had a stroller the size of a Hummer, and decided to keep their infant quiet by rattling a large set of toy keys throughout the performance. Then there was the three year old who began her aria just at Yo Yo Ma’s longest cello solo cranked up. But the most enjoyable performance was the mother-daughter team, now dubbed the cackle hens. Want to know all about daughter’s roommates, shopping expeditions, friends’ love affairs, problems with finding good shoes? I can tell you. In fact, so can anyone sitting within 100 feet of them. MY daughter was reduced to tears of frustration trying to hear.

For many outdoor classical performances you can get away from these boors by moving your blanket. But Ravinia seems to have no limit to the amount of tickets they will sell. (We once were forced to sit on the sidewalk during a performance of the Gypsy Kings. I wonder what would have happened if someone had shouted “fire!”) In an attempt to squeeze the juice out of anyone dumb enough to attend, there is obviously no concern that there be any type of quality to the experience.

I had resolved never to attend again unless I bought seats in the Pavilion. That is, until I remembered the Lyric Opera’s matinee of Der Rosenkavalier that daughter and I attended a couple of years ago. We had good seats on the main floor, and my memory is that they cost around 70 bucks a pop. However, I have no idea of how the opera ended, as the entire last scene of the opera was utterly drowned out, and the sight lines totally obscured, by the amount of elderly patrons who decided to get up, leave early, clank their walkers up the aisles, discuss the exact time their trains left, and slap-slap-slap the exit doors, not necessarily in time to the music. Haven't these people learned any manners in their seventy or eighty years? Where do they have to be that is so much more important than where they are? Has attention span become so short that a stellar production requiring hundreds of hours of work and thousands and thousands of dollars, and for which they paid a tidy ticket price, cannot hold their interest?

I did complain several times to Lyric management. They don’t let people in once the music has started, and they make an announcement to turn off cell phones. I asked them to add a request that people who must leave early, do so at intermission. Although they said they would consider it, nothing has been done. They lost my yearly subscription. Although I’ve been a subscriber off and on for nearly 30 years, never again until something is done. We buy individual tickets only, far fewer, and only for evening performances.

Maybe nobody cares. Maybe the bean counters are satisfied with their gate. Maybe I’ll switch to music dvds.