Applause

Applause as an expression of approval is today universal. We applause by clapping hands to welcome a speaker, to hail a celebrity, and to show appreciation at the end of a performance, or at the end of a number as in ballet or of an aria in opera. If the performance is exceptional, we shout "Bravo" while clapping. In recent years, we find certain members of the audience at the opera and ballet who, with or without applause, howl and yowl, even screech and squeal. They are by and large a young crowd on the balcony but I have noticed some over 30. Their noise-making makes me think that it is a carryover from rock concerts and sport events, and I find it uncouth and inappropriate, that is to say, vulgar and annoying, no less than the bad habit of some spectators who talk during the performance as though they were at home watching television. We must remind ourselves, nevertheless, that the practice of clapping hands in approval is a convention, too, apparently historically rather recent. There are, after all, other forms of applause -- stomping the feet, snapping the fingers, groaning, and knocking the table with the knuckle. We need young audience, of course, to sustain and support opera and ballet in the future, and it is not inconceivable that decades from now the practice of screaming to express approval may establish itself as a norm. Mercifully I shan't be around.