I am surprised and disappointed that Martin Kettle should be proud to declare that he has occasionally booed at the opera, implying that this is a justifiable response when warranted (I’ve booed at the opera before. But what happened to a young soprano this week was plain cruel, 10 November).
It is not, it is yobbish. Just because it is done in some opera houses doesn’t make it right, and I think it entirely appropriate that the perpetrator in this instance has been banned by the Royal Opera House, rather like a football hooligan being banned from the terraces.
Perhaps in more than 50 years of reviewing opera I have been fortunate enough to frequent only non-booing houses. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard it at the ROH, and I would certainly have had something to say to the heckler at Covent Garden this week. I show my disapprobation by withdrawing applause.
Christopher Morley
Halesowen, West Midlands
• I was in the row where the “heckler” sat on Tuesday night and can tell you that the vociferous critique of the boy soprano was not racist. The comment that I clearly heard was about what he felt was the inadequacy of the voice in an opera house. He had already made audible critical comments about the production, as well as enthusiastically applauding other arias – notably those of Lisette Oropesa, whose excellence had undoubtedly attracted a full and enthusiastic house from the comments I heard around me.
I rue the heckler’s target on this occasion, but support anyone’s wish to draw attention to the deficiencies of a production while applauding the soloists whose voices gave pleasure and not applauding those who did not reach the level of excellence required for an internationally renowned opera house. As for the heckler being banned from the Royal Opera House for life, unless he was a danger to others that’s ridiculous.
Carmela Bromhead Jones
London
• If the deplorable booing of the young singer Malakai M Bayoh at Covent Garden was indeed motivated by the heckler’s feeling that a female soprano should have been cast in his role instead, as Martin Kettle guesses, I trust that the Royal Opera House will be buoyed by the fact that history is most definitely on its side, as the part of Oberto in Handel’s Alcina was sung by the boy treble William Savage at the opera’s first performance on 16 April 1735.
Simon Mold
Loughborough
• With regard to Martin Kettle’s report on a sole heckler at Covent Garden, Handel added the role of Oberto to Alcina at a late stage of composition because he was so impressed by the skills of the boy soprano William Savage. Handel would have been delighted at the two youngsters now fulfilling his vision for his opera in the current Royal Opera House production.
Derek Spears
Mortimer Common, Berkshire
• Martin Kettle thinks booing at the opera can sometimes be justified. I don’t think so. For most of us, a trip to the opera is a special treat that takes a lot of saving up for. Be critical by all means, exchange your views to your heart’s content in the interval or afterwards, but booing during the performance can spoil a once-in-a-lifetime experience for someone not quite as privileged as you. Your judgments may be correct, but it’s still an arrogance to impose them on others.
Colin Davis
Taunton, Somerset
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