Radio Stew: Classical Music Riot

Jun 01, 2013: 12:05 am- 4am
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Classical music has, occasionally, caused riots among crowds hearing new works for the first time. Daniel Auber 1830 opera "La muette de Portic sparked the Belgian Revolution. Igor Stravinsky's 1931 ballet "The Rite of Spring" may be the most famous case of a rioting crowd. From Wikipedia: "On the evening of the 29 May the theatre was packed: Gustav Linor reported, "Never...has the hall been so full, or so resplendent; the stairways and the corridors were crowded with spectators eager to see and to hear". The evening began with Les Sylphides, in which Nijinsky and Karsavina danced the main roles. The Rite followed; there is general agreement among eyewitnesses and commentators that the disturbances in the audience began during the Introduction, and grew into a crescendo when the curtain rose on the stamping dancers in "Augurs of Spring". Marie Rambert, who was working as an assistant to Nijinsky, recalled later that it was soon impossible to hear the music on the stage. In his autobiography, Stravinsky writes that the derisive laughter that greeted the first bars of the Introduction disgusted him, and that he left the auditorium to watch the rest of the performance from the stage wings. The demonstrations, he says, grew into "a terrific uproar" which, along with the on-stage noises, drowned out the voice of Nijinsky who was shouting the step numbers to the dancers. The journalist and photographer Carl Van Vechten recorded that the person behind him got carried away with excitement, and "began to beat rhythmically on top of my head", though Van Vechten failed to notice this at first, his own emotion being so great." Other works are explored.