Opera House Director: “Please Don’t Boo”
What’s next? Asking World Cup fans not to sing? Oliver Mears, the new director of the Royal Opera House, in London, has pleaded with audiences not to boo performances they dislike. Booing has become more prevalent at Covent Garden, with recent productions including an exceptionally bloody Lucia di Lammermoor, William Tell and Idomeneo
suffering the wrath of amgry ticket-holders. Mears, one month into the job, avoided jeers in his previous role as artistic director of Northern Ireland Opera. He added: “Other people are entitled to their own way of doing things and their own opinions, of course, so I would never say ‘you can’t boo’, but personally it is never something I would do.†However Sir Antonio Pappano, the Opera House’s music director, said he was not offended by boos directed at the character of Pinkerton in the House’s Madama Butterfly last month.
