Let’s begin with the sad truth: the Heckler was factually correct. Sean Michael Plumb as Harlekin, Ryan Speedo Green as Truffaldin, Lise Davidsen as Ariadne, and Aok Kumar as Scaramuccio in Strauss’s “Ariadne auf Naxos.” Yet the Met management, not the Heckler, is disrespecting opera. By way of explanation, a Met spokesperson said : “Although opera singers are vocal athletes, they should not be subjected to the kind of heckling that sports spectators get away with in stadiums.” Critics of the Heckler, including one of Rae’s vocal colleagues, her publicist, an earnest young opera administrator from Boston, and the Met itself were quoted as saying that this showed an unacceptable lack of “respect” for the hard work singers do. The Met’s PR apparatus immediately sprang into action, announcing that they would identify the “rogue audience member” so they could ban him from all future performances in the house-along with anyone else who does likewise. In the silence after the applause following coloratura soprano Brenda Rae’s rendition of Zerbinetta’s famously difficult aria, “Großmächtige Prinzessin,” a heckler stood up in one of the left-hand boxes, yelled “Madam, you have no technique!” and walked out.
A funny thing happened at the Metropolitan Opera last Thursday, during the final performance of a recent run of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos.
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