NEW YORK (AP) — It's the dreaded sound at any live performance — a ringing cellphone. That's what happened Tuesday night at Lincoln Center's Avery Fisher Hall during the final movement of Gustav Mahler's Ninth Symphony by the New York Philharmonic.
Music Director Alan Gilbert stopped the orchestra until the phone was silenced.
When the iPhone's ringtone initially went off, the conductor turned his head to signal his displeasure. But the ringing from the first row persisted.
Gilbert asked that the offending noise be turned off and finally stopped the orchestra until it was.Betsy Vorce, speaking for Lincoln Center, says an announcement is made before every performance telling audience members to turn off their phones. If a device does go off, ushers are directed to discreetly ask the owner to turn it off.
I've been in Broadway houses when the cast halted a scene, walked down stage, sat down, and waited for the offender to finish the call. They then ordered the house crew to remove that person, or their phone - and until that was accomplished, the play did not continue. I would not have been so generous.
Whatever happened to class?
And so it goes.
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OMG! It never happened while I attended a concert but I heard about this so often.
ReplyDeleteOnce, at a piano recital, I sat in the half-full mezzanine at the University of Montreal. There, on the right side of the mezzanine, two people seating almost alone. They were sleeping! Not only sleeping but they were also snoring!!!!
And of course, we've all been subjected to an (old) lady who decides it is time to clean up her purse right in the middle of a slow movement of a concerto!
OH! And not to forget those who come to the concert with a heavy head-cold or worst, the flu...
Yeah! And so it goes...