Concert Intrusions - Exposed!

Noisy new technologies have created new ways to annoy concert-goers. And in Brazil, one director is in legal trouble for annoying them in a low-tech way: mooning them after they booed his production.

Several recent articles in the New York Times have highlighted the unexpected consequences of people carrying around so much electronic technology.

On Nov. 19, 2003, the Times reported that the first violin of the Julliard String Quartet was himself the culprit during an October concert in Manhattan. In the middle of a Mozart piece, a loud chirping started emanating from his pocket. No, not a cell phone – the violinist's electronic metronome had accidentally started its tick-tocking during the performance, which had to be stopped and restarted. (Some concertgoers, New Yorkers who never miss a chance to point out irony, had gleefully reported to the newspaper that it was a cell-phone. The violinist clarified the identity of the noisy intruder, hoping to rebuild his reputation.)

A December 2, 2003 article pointed out that "hearing aids" needed to be explicitly added to the list of electronic items to be minded before a concert starts. The code words "other electronic devices" mentioned after "cell phones and pagers" is meant to include hearing aids, which can whistle a loud, high-pitched feedback – when set at too high a volume, for example. However, the wearer is usually unaware of the problem, and the source of the pesky whine is often hard to locate in a crowd.

In a recent concert at Carnegie Hall, conductor Simon Rattle had to speak to the audience (between movements of Schubert's Symphony No. 9 in C) about an annoying whistle that had started during the first movement. According to Anthony Tommasini of the Times, "with characteristic British courtesy, [Rattle] asked, if I remember correctly, 'Could someone please help that person with this problem', or some similarly tactful words."

Tommasini also recalls hearing aid intrusions at the Met, at the Mostly Mozart Festival, and at Dawn Upshaw recital. He conceded that while it is easy to become cross with package rattlers and coughers, "it's hard to get upset with hard-of-hearing music lovers."

Finally, we learn that director Gerald Thomas' radical production of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" didn't please the opening night audience at Rio's Teatro Municipal. They roared boos and catcalls and insults when he took the stage, after the cast had taken their bows.

Thomas turned his back on the crowd... and dropped trou. And everything else he was wearing from the waist down.

Now he has been dragged into court, charged with public indecency. (Remember, this is Rio. Home of Carnival. Ever seen what is worn – and not worn – in that annual public spectacle?)

Thomas claims he heard anti-Semitic slurs from the front rows, and that his legal troubles are politically motivated – he has repeatedly mocked the former state governor and his family in his newspaper column.

Free speech advocates and artists from around the world are lining up behind Thomas.

Read the New York Times article about the errant metronome

Read Tommasini's New York Times article about hearing aids and a hearing-impaired community's take on the subject at DeafTech (technology reviews for the deaf)

Read the Times article about Gerard Thomas' moon-lit performance of Wagner, as reproduced in the International Herald Tribune

Visit a fully-clothed Gerald Thomas at his site