Last Thursday night, rather than sit at home alone missing Nana (who was in Tokyo, wrangling 8th graders), I accepted an invitation to see the Seoul Philharmonic perform, among other things, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Bonus: One of the APIS music teachers is married to one of the orchestra's trumpets, so a handful of us were able to get good seats for free.
Now, I used to be a regular symphony patron back in Pittsburgh and New Haven, but I fell out of the habit during my year in DC (priced out of the market for the good stuff--stupid lobbyists), and most nights here in Seoul, the long trip back from downtown makes every concert a pretty late night. But for free seats at a performance of one of my favorite pieces, I would not be deterred.
On the whole, the concert was very enjoyable. It being a Thursday night, the hall was maybe only two-thirds full, and as is common for Thursday night concerts, the energy level was a bit low. Acoustically, the hall itself was also a bit of a liability--the Sejong Center is home to several opera, dance, and musical theater companies, so even with the sound shell down, a lot of precision was lost in the back corners of that cavernous stage.
The audience, though, ate it up.
As it turns out, the conductor, Sung Myung-hoon, is one of Korea's most beloved sons, the beneficiary of that familiar dynamic in which any Korean who achieves some success abroad instantly becomes a national celebrity at home, regardless of the particulars (see: Hines Ward). Sung Myung-hoon conducts the Paris Opera, and as such the audience Thursday night seemed to have determined, before the first note was sounded, that this was going to be the best concert of their lives. (Best Korean conductor = best conductor in the world = best concert of your life. These folks are very good at math.)
Now, I don't want to sound like some kind of Anton Ego, tearing down great achievements as a way of burnishing my own self-importance. Thursday's performance was very enjoyable, the orchestra played well, the soloist--while a bit of a ham, but aren't most soloists?--executed a very satisfactory Mozart piano concerto. And the Rite of Spring was its good old bombastic self. But the audience applauded the soloist through eight curtain calls and two encores. Then, after the Rite of Spring, there were another eight curtain calls, a standing ovation, and another short encore, to boot. (Don't get me started on this encore--they simply played the last 90 seconds of Rite over again. It doesn't work that way. Stravinsky makes you earn that ending. You can't just go back and play it again! Argh!) Let me say again that this was in no way a disappointing concert--but was it standing-ovation material? I mean, if we give every satisfying concert a standing ovation, what do we do to recognize those truly outstanding performances? Riot?
Anyway. [Steps down from soapbox.] That's about enough out of me!
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3 comments:
I think maybe there are different cultural norms for ovation-giving and encores. Once in Moscow I went to a piano recital where the pianist played like 3 pieces, maybe a half-hour of material total. He was good, I guess, but I wasn't completely blown away. However, the audience gave him such adamant standing ovations that he played FIVE encores. Yes, more encores than actual pieces on the program. I left wondering if maybe it was planned that way. (Then again, maybe recitals in the US and Europe are like that, too? I haven't been to many.)
Agree with Leslie. In Western Europe and the US, classical concerts are all about being highbrow and stuffy and artistic and proper. It's partly due to the niche classical music has had to make for itself in the face of Jazz, the other "art music" of the west. To an extent, Western symphonies WANT to alienate the general public, because the general public has alienated classical music. Instead, it tries to communicate on a level only "experienced concertgoers" will fully comprehend, as a way to thank them. It's a secret code, and new concertgoers either find it offputting or pretend to "get it." It's not about entertainment, it's about outcompeting the orchestra in the next state over or the musician in the next chair over. This is serious shit, people. And the ___ Symphony Orchestra has something to prove.
Not so in the concerts I've been to in Prague, St. Petersburg, and Mexico City. There, classical music is all about entertainment. Since classical, jazz, pop, and rock are all "borrowed" or "foreign," they're all pretty much viewed the same and there isn't the well-formed hierarchy that is ingrained in Western culture. (And yes, classical music can be considered "foreign" to East Europe since Communism effectively extinguished it from concert halls for half a century, and it had to be reintroduced to a generation that heretofore had limited experience with it.) It's got an entirely different focus. Sure, the clarinet solo was a little sharp. Audience doesn't care. Yes, the orchestra's tenor-bass range is too heavy for Mozart. Audience doesn't care. And what's with the acoustics in this hall? Audience doesn't care! Performances in the nonWest are meant to sell tickets. People talk and sing along. They clap ad nauseum and in unison. They demand ten encores. The concertgoing culture is just so different that their "success" must be measure by different criteria.
I guess what disturbed me wasn't that I didn't think the show was deserving of all the adulation (to each his own), but the fact that the adulation seemed so mechanical. I guess I didn't convey this in the original post, but the applause was actually pretty tepid--entirely consistent, stubbornly unflagging--but tepid. It wouldn't have been so strange if the audience had been really pumped up--I mean, that's what a standing ovation is FOR, and I would have been thrilled to see button-downed old Korea going wild for Stravinsky--but as it was, the response just seemed kind of faked.
As for "planned" ovations--I know that all the ensembles at my high school would seat non-performing music students in the front of the audience with instructions to start a standing ovation. So maybe this was another seeded round of applause?
Anyway, my main concern is still based on the idea of expressive restraint: if you act like every concert is the best concert you've ever seen, how to do you express your appreciation for the best concert you've ever seen? You'd get crucified for using hyperbole all the time in writing--why is it any different if you're abusing non-verbal communication like applause?
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