IPhones menace is a fright at the opera
‘They have abdicated their responsibilities’
BRITAIN’S most prestigious opera venue has been slammed by furious fans for failing to halt the growing menace of audience members using mobile phones.
Managers at the Royal Opera House in London have been accused of not doing enough to stop people sending messages, checking the time and even taking pictures during performances.
The bright screens of modern devices such as iPhones are said to be especially distracting.
Former Tory Minister David Mellor, The Mail on Sunday’s opera critic, said: ‘There has been an undoubted diminution in the way that people behave in the Royal Opera House.
‘I know people might say, ‘‘you stuffy b ***** d’’, but great music requires concentration and it’s actually an insult to the singers how readily distracted some people are and how contemptuous they are of the rights of others.
‘If they are bored, they switch on their mobiles to do whatever they do and they don’t care about the impact it has on anybody else. It is a sad situation.’
Mr Mellor said he was horrified when an elderly woman sitting near him at a recent performance of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly began taking photographs.
He decided not to intervene because of her age but noticed there were no staff around to ask her to refrain.
Mr Mellor added: ‘Nobody is ever present from the Royal Opera House to do anything about it. They have abdicated their responsibilities.’
One opera-lover from Oxford recently wrote to a national newspaper to complain: ‘There is no longer any attempt to enforce the rule of “no photography in the auditorium” as printed in the programme.’