This month’s Soapbox focuses on the strange business of the operatic curtain call. As part of a recent music tour I was leading, we saw three performances at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich – Das Rheingold, Rusalka and Lohengrin. Two Wagners, one Dvořák and more curtain calls than I have ever witnessed in a 72-hour period. 

Photo © Daria Nekipelova/Pexels

I totally understand all the individual, chorus and conductor bows that take place on the mainstage, but the number of bows in front of the house curtain was taken to a new level of self-congratulation. For the first appearance of the principals, the audience seemed to be quite enthusiastic, but then they started to exit the auditorium. There was a second call and then a third, after which we left (these were long operas, and the bladder was already stretched to capacity). For all I know, they could still be bowing away to an empty room. I felt especially sorry for the guy who had sung a small role as a hunter in Rusalka and whose costume consisted of traditional deer-hunt garb of bare chest and leather pants, as if he was off to a bloodsport Mardi Gras. He looked...