Safety first for Last Night of the Proms
Royal Albert Hall favourite may be home-viewer only if social distancing rules are not relaxed in time
‘We are working within the Government guidelines and don’t know what they will look like by August and September’
THERE is nothing quite like the atmosphere at the Last Night of the Proms.
But this year, Prommers may be asked to wave their flags and belt out Rule, Britannia! from the sofa.
The BBC has announced that the annual celebration of classical music will go ahead this year, but in a different form as a consequence of lockdown.
Only the last two weeks of the season will involve musicians performing live at the Royal Albert Hall, “culminating in a poignant and unique Last Night of the Proms to bring the nation together” in September.
Organisers are hoping that social distancing rules will be relaxed by then. But their contingency plan will involve a housebound audience watching performers on stage. Even if a socially-distanced audience is allowed in, there will be no place for the Prommers, 1,350 of whom usually buy “standing room only” tickets on the day.
Organisers are exploring the idea of members of the orchestra at the Last Night being spaced around the stage or auditorium, assessing how practical that would be and how it would affect the acoustics.
The First Night of the Proms will also be very different: the BBC Orchestras and Singers will form a 350-strong “Grand
Virtual Orchestra” recording their contributions separately at home, some with nothing more than an iphone.
The results will be spliced together into a video for broadcast. The slogan for this year’s event is “Not the Proms as we know them, but the Proms as we need them”.
A BBC source said: “We are working strictly within the Government guidelines and we don’t know what they will look like by August and September.
“We are not ruling out having an audience at the Royal Albert Hall by then, but it may be that the Last Night will have to be enjoyed at home. Millions of people do watch the broadcast at home every year.”
The original programme has been scrapped and full details of the new one are yet to be announced.
The First Night on July 17 will mark the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth with a “mash-up” of his nine symphonies, specially created by Iain Farrington and performed by the Virtual Orchestra.
That will be followed by six weeks of concerts from the archives, until the live performances begin on Aug 28 as a mixture of solo and ensemble work. David Pickard, director of the BBC Proms, said: “These are challenging times for our nation and the rest of the world, but they show that we need music and the creative industries more than ever.
“This year it is not going to be the Proms as we know them, but the Proms as we need them. We will provide a stimulating and enriching musical summer for both loyal Proms audiences and people discovering the riches we have to offer for the first time.” Even staging concerts to an empty hall will be a logistical challenge.
Craig Hassall, chief executive of the Royal Albert Hall, recently told The Daily Telegraph that Katherine Jenkins’ hour-long performance from the venue to mark VE Day took five days to set up.
Mr Hassall said that the venue has worked out how many people can be safely accommodated if they adhere to the two-metre rule and found that the audience would drop to 30 per cent. It would be impossible to stick to social distancing rules in the venue’s narrow corridors and doorways, he added.