About audiences: at home and away

Behavior of concert audiences has continually been a pet-peeve of mine.  As a conductor, I have suffered through:

• Endless chatter at a symphony pops concert held at a Fairground.  The crowd was seated in the grandstand (which only added to the echo) and couldn't even shut up when I turned to address them between works on the program.  Dammit!  This is not the county fair or a demolition derby.  The same holds true for just about every concert held in a gymnasium; the crowd acts as if it is attending an athletic event.
• Members of the audience of youth ensemble programs who leave when their child has finished performing, whether or not the concert itself is over.
• People seated behind me yacking through an entire half of a performance: a Beethoven 1 and 9 concert.  If they didn't want to hear the first symphony and compare the exponential growth of the great composer from the beginning to the end of his symphonic output, they should have come at intermission, or stayed away completely!

What might possibly be worse is the ubiquitous standing ovation.  In my own community, and I am sure many others, people stand at the close of a performance if the ensemble manages to flatuate in tune.  Here, the standing "O" means absolutely nothing, because audiences stand for everything, not just for true excellence.  Of course, I usually stay seated and politely applaud--assuming the performance is actually good.  Many do not even reach that standard.

This is the first (and possibly last?) time that I will quote Craig's List in an S & P posting.  It is written by an audience member at a recent ballet performance in San Francisco, referring to another patron who vented his frustration to real audience members.  I wish that I had the guts to do so.

The entire posting may be found here.