Tweeting at the Opera

While we’re talking about admonishing the sinner, can someone admonish this guy already?

Wired’s Dylan Tweney recounts his live-tweeting of Wagner’s Die Walküre at the San Francisco Opera. I cannot fathom how he escaped the opera house alive. Look, fussing with your phone constantly—even on “minimum brightness”—is kind of a d— move at any performance, but it’s borderline sacrilegious when it comes to Wagner, whose genius was in creating such an absolutely immersive experience through the fusion of music and drama. Which makes little intrusions from your neighbors that break the spell about a thousand times more grating. 

Amen to that. Nothing drives me crazier than people whipping out their cell phones every five minutes in a darkened movie theater — and I don’t think Get Him to the Greek stands to lose nearly as much from the distraction as Wagner. Heck, I’m gonna look at you funny if you shift in your seat too much during the show, so maybe it’s better to save the Tweeting till after.

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In his defense, Tweney says in the comments that he did everything he could to Tweet as discreetly as possible, and that his idea was to see if he could interest Wired readers in the opera (who aren’t otherwise what you’d consider natural opera fans) — which, he thinks, had some success. I’ll admit, there may be something to that: The tweets about fog and fire and swordfights may pique some people’s interest, though I like Sanchez’s alternative suggestion — that they set aside a box for new-media types who want to blog or Tweet away during the show, to let the other patrons enjoy the experience uninterrupted.

But I still think there’s something lost by not simply experiencing the show first, and commenting later. It tends to prove the naysayers right when they scoff that obsessive use of technology shortens the attention span. Can we not just sit and listen anymore?

But now I’m venturing into serious geezer territory. What do you think? Is this an idea that could be used for good, or just another way that technology is ruining everything?

Postscript: A link in the comments turned up this great, hour-long introduction to Wagner by Stephen Fry (for BBC 4). Fry’s child-like enthusiasm is contagious, and it makes me want to take a trip to Bayreuth sometime. As a diehard Wagner fan who also has more than 1.5 million followers on Twitter, I wonder what he would think of Tweeting during an opera?

[H/t Megan McArdle. Photo courtesy San Francisco Opera]

 

Author

  • Margaret Cabaniss

    Margaret Cabaniss is the former managing editor of Crisis Magazine. She joined Crisis in 2002 after graduating from the University of the South with a degree in English Literature and currently lives in Baltimore, Maryland. She now blogs at SlowMama.com.

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