The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Last night at the ballet he watched the lights go down and was astonished as Prokofiev's gentle music began to usher in the realm of faery how bravely the audience resisted the spell with all the means at their disposal. Such coughings and clearings such penetrating rustlings of plastic crisp bags heroically smuggled in kept us all safely earthbound for much of the performance. Curiously he noticed in the interval among the gentle wash and murmur of conversation there was not a cough to be heard. It all began when the lights went down. He pondered on this curious and immutable fact – felt he was seeing only a part of something that stretched off in every direction like the great wall of china; close up just bricks and mortar, stand back and see and the world condenses anew in moving from a single dimensioned Mercator projection cul de sac to a multi-coloured infinite landscape of life that triggers everything floods brain body and soul with love endorphins chemicals what you will.

Some months previously he had stood in the arena at the Albert hall as Simon rattle conducted Rheingold on authentic instruments and there if anyone even looked askance they were subjected to a stony basilisk medusa stare from a gaunt bearded giant in the centre of the arena who scanned the crowd ceaselessly his ears attuned like Roderick Usher’s to the finest dog whistle sounds as they emerged from the infra red. This guy seemed possessed of a Dune pre-cog spice-like sensitivity and kept his lonely vigil to the clandestine approval of everyone. I watched a man in front of me clearly dehydrated dying of thirst trying vainly to extricate a bottle of Evian from an unwisely chosen acoustically challenged carrier bag for the entire performance without success. Even as he thought it the gaze was upon him. (No interval, this is Wagner). Again, at Rattle’s rendition of Beethoven’s ninth, Albert Hall packed to the rafters awash with anticipation and excitement and except for the mobile phone going off as Rattle approached the podium ... which brought such a wave of derision and audible contempt from the surrounding seats that it simply emphasised the ensuing absolute Kelvin cessation of all molecular motion silence that followed. Ditto Rheingold at the royal opera house two weeks ago.

Compare this to the ballet. Last night the back of the orchestra stalls sounded like a ward for advanced consumptives. So, what’s the difference, acknowledging the rather uncertain territory of ideological spectrum covered from Wagner 19century to 20th century Prokofiev and Frederick Ashton as irrelevant? Discounting the gravity of the themes locations and a possible humourlessness comparatively that may inhabit us Wagnerians in that particular mode or incarnation ( I wonder who’d win in a fight between Wagner and Frederick Ashton, discounting Prokofiev of course - a dangerous opponent, his parents took him to see Faust when he was three and this ‘inspired him’. Freddie would clearly win and be appalled by that fact, his balletic grace and height giving him a formidable advantage over the gnome like ‘master’ whose occupation sedentary to Ashton’s leaping.

Anyway, obviously, last night Cinderella; kids, the place was full of them in their best frocks looking marvellous I have to say but coughing like troopers. The season inclement winter a liquid end to the year the last week’s diet rich in dairy products and all the necessary ingredients in surfeit for the production of phlegm. Their coughing only alleviated by the occasional scream or whoop of unselfconscious glee joy whatever. One by me had clearly been carried there from her sickbed and produced a continuum of plaintive wheezings and whistles – like she’d just been deposited in the stalls by a huge wave (ed. Steady on). Strangely and rightly they didn’t bother me. It was the adults that were the problem, almost predominantly men who hacked and puffed and huffed and boomed especially at the most sensitive parts and there to my way of thinking is the clue. It wasn’t about physical affliction but feelings and emotional discomfort and embarrassment the refuge and defence from emotion that any therapist would recognise immediately … and my preoccupation with it you ask? That too! My defence against surrender is to police these other bastards who aren’t doing it right. So to all the men (they know who they are) a simple request: get real or stay home i.e. paradoxically, suspend your disbelief or be honest and stay away. The theatre is not a one way entertainment it’s a dialogue - even if our part is to be silent it’s the quality of that silence, that surrender – that’s when the magic happens. You have to be prepared to participate as the children clearly were if not, fuck off Father!I mean ...now we're getting somewhere - but I - Sorry, time's up; right, see you next Wednesday.
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