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Indeed. My point about Gergiev. The "magical silence".
I once attended "Rite" at the Met and the end was ruined by overly and immediate cheering. Inappropriate, a young girl has just danced herself to death.

On the other hand how about applause after arias? I just saw Moses in Egypt at the NYOC and that audience (average age: 304) didn't mind letting their hair down after a decent warble.   

APPPLLAUAAASE

Well we're getting into so many split hairs now I think we all need a good soak of conditioner. I tell you what, if appreciation can be expressed within and doesn't need to be uttered, don't say "Thank you" any more when people give you a present, then explain your theory to them at that time. You'll be able to experience first hand what people think about that.

Meanwhile, I await the enlightened conductor who verbally encourages some applause - within the pieces of work that are appropriate -
and at the appropriate juncture within the performance. Otherwise, I will follow your suggested protocol but it rather depends upon where I am. I may boo at La Scala or clap during performances in Ulaan Baatar. In Convent Garden I shall keep quiet, although I remind you all that this is the same venue that diplayed a graphic oral sex scene when Anna Nicole in the opera of the same name goes down on her 90 year old lover and then wipes the semen off her mouth with a hankie. Not totally romantic, I must admit, but I certainly felt like giving a round of applause for the old buffer.

I must confess, I even let out a laugh at "Meistersingers" once, and a positive guffaw at the Met Premiere of "Elisir d'Amore" when the love potion is revealed to be cheap Bordeaux plonk. When I was younger I used to loudly boo the wicked witch in panto, and I can assure you it was the most delightful fun. Wagner's "Ring" could do with plenty of that, given all the nasty characters that show up.

I'll tell you what - I'll advise which performances I'll be at, including seat numbers, and if you happen to be planning on attending either please don't come or sit up in the Gods where you won't have to hear me chortle loudly and clap enthusiastically right next to your hearing aids. Other than that I'll be quiet. But some of you should lighten up a bit as well. "Music? Fun? Good God man whoever gave you that idea?" - Chris

And appreciation is not considered consideration for others. How bizzarre.
It's a debate about the concept of appreciation, gentlemen, not etiquette. They are rather different things.

Thank you - as I suggested - whether to applause or not has the conductors discretion, not those of you frantically thumbing the old reference guide "Opera Etiquette for Aristocrats" (London, Pompous and Flatulent Publishing Ltd, 1917) for guidance.
I'm seeing "Moses in Egypt" at the Met on Tuesday; I may find it hard to suppress a loud and raucous cheer of relief when the babe is pulled from the bullrushes. Because otherwise there wouldn't be a story to tell at all. I'll let you know what happened. - Chris

Don't you feel, however, that the conductor may actually plan the decision whether to permit applause prior to the performance ahead of time? Read what I said properly please. You seem to suggest I'd like them to spontaenously burst into raptures and encourage us sitting in the seats to cheer on like Ra-Ra Girls with Pom-Poms. That's not what I suggested at all.

Applause is a matter of showing appreciation. It is never bad manners. Preventing other people from showing their appreciation however is the height of social pomposity. The issue is nothing to do with manners or even etiquette. It is to do with the most appropriate place, during a performance, in which to insert such appreciation. I would suggest that is not necessarily hard and fast for every single piece of classical music, and that the conductor should be the judge, not some old buffer sitting in row C14 who feels everyone should bend to his or her idea of social niceties.

Good Lord you'll be telling the Conductor what to wear next. And banning women from appearing on the stage again. Bring back Castratos we can't have these felamles singing in public. Times need to move on and adapt. And the best gauge of the appropriate guidance as concerns the public appreciation of a performance should be the conductor. After, all, he / or she is usually weaponized. "Applaud damn it or you'll feel the lash of my baton, Sir!"

It's not a bad behaviorial issue: (ie: clapping is bad manners) - it has never been bad manners to show appreciation. In fact in Chinese opera today the audience bring in food and drinks and talk all the way through. Which is probably understandable when the performances drag on for seven hours. At the tiny Ulaan Baatar Opera House in Mongolia, the locals applaud all the time. Having kids of six and even sit through Aida yet having them enjoy it at that age - even though they may not underdstand everything - is the starting point of the next generation appreciating our classical cultural inheritance. Who do we think we are to impose social conditions that restrict classical music to purely being an orchestral offshoot of 'adult entertainment'. How pretentious and snobbish. No thanks.   

Actually not clapping is a relatively recent thing, one can perhaps blame the British reserve for spreading this about from the late Victorian era onwards, prior to this anything went. And sometimes still does - consider La Scala, even today. Paying members of the audience also have the right to show their appreciation - or otherwise. Just look at the infamous premiere of "Rite of Spring" (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2013/apr/12/rite-of-spring-rude-awakening).

Mobile phones etc are a no-no, that's a given. But applause? That's a matter of where best to place appropriate admiration within a performance . 

My personal view is that we follow contemporary protocol and wait until the end. However, there are certain performances where perhaps the audience could be encouraged to applaud if the conductor felt it appropriate. It could be written into the program notes. Plus remember, the composers themselves - those who wrote the actual music - left no instructions on the matter. So I guess they'd be happy either way.

This then means I suspect that it leaves it for the Conductor to decide. Maybe more should explain through their programme notes whether or not they feel it appropriate for an audience to applaud or not after each movement. As the interpreters of the music we are to listen to, I feel it is their authority on the matter that counts. And if a certain conductor feels a movement should be allowed a round of applause prior to the next movement beginning, I'd have no qualms about joining in. In fact doing so at weekend afternoon matinees may actually encourage more children to join in and be more engaging betwist audience, the musicians, and the composer. Certainly the Met, with an average age of about 103 of it's performance goers could use a little encouragement in getting the next generations to "pass the baton". Some performances have become more revered than is absolutely necessary. Music should not be socially intimidating or bound up in arguments over reserved appreciation lest we spoil the knot in our black tie. But neither do I appreciate the orgasmic whoops of joy before the final bars of a piece have had time to fade.   

The reverse point is also true however. Valery Gergiev, when conducting Tchaikovsky's sixth, always leaves his right arm stretched out at the end of the symphony for a good 30 seconds to allow the audience to fully appreciate a melodramic silence of Tchaikovsky's farewell. Rather more dignified that the immediate applause that would otherwise break out when one of Russia's finest composers has musically described the ending of his life. 

It's not a matter of good or bad manners. It is a matter of appropriate admiration being demonstrated at the appropriate time. And in  a multicultural world, the conductor should be the main arbitrator of audience participation towards a work he is solely responsible for interpreting. More guidance from conductors please, and less snobbery on the matter from the old farts over what constitute appropriate manners.

You'll all be expecting us to wait until the last person has been served our dinner to commence eating next, and then where would we be? I prefer my dishes served hot as the chef intended. Let the conductor be the arbitrator on the issue, not Debretts. And let's have a few more conductors let us know if they feel it is OK to applaud - or otherwise. - Chris

Indeed. But I bet Del Boy could sing that. Out of tune, but he'd know most of the words. G&S is ingrained in the British working class. Opera for the proliteriat, as Freddie Mercury would have us believe of "Bohemian Rhapsody". 

["Del Boy"]

More "Del Boy" from the British sitcom "Only Fools & Horses" actually, but never mind. We digress, but here's a quick taste:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wN5FBwptO1w
The guy "Trigger" is Catherine Zeta Jones' father incidentally. - Chris

I can't recall...but it was very recently. I put in a bid to buy so it might have been one of the Russian/Eastern European specialists stores on ebay or elsewhere, but it went before i got the chance to acquire it and I just missed the chance.  But there is a Meloydia recording out there somewhere. I must have missed it by a matter of minutes. Mikrokosmos often has obscure Russians, but I searched their database and Kalafati came up blank. It might have been them and they've sold it so its no longer listed but I really can't recall.
I guess you and I will just have to keep our eyes peeled. There's something out there somewhere. - Chris 

I have the same info as you have, so it seems complete, but with one exception - a reference I have is to an opera "Count Serebryany" - possibly an alternative/original title for "The Silver Prince" although it's dated a year earlier, in 1922. It may be worth following up in your research. - Chris   

[Fyodor Yakimenko]

Fyodor Yakimenko was Ukrainian - also known as "Akimenko". Studied with Balakirev then at St. Petersburg Conservatory with Liadov, Vitols and Rimsky, graduating in 1914. Later taught Stravinsky composition, and was based in France from 1923 - Paris, then Nice.
One Opera: "The Snow Fairy"
Orchestrated Lermontov's "Rusalka" and "Angel"
Two Violin Sonatas
Cello Sonata
A variety of minatures and character pieces.
Biography by P. Matsenko: "Akimenko" (Winnipeg, 1954)  - Chris

 

[is]

My bad - sorry to sow confusion. Seeing this, and I double checked - my Yurasovsky is a different one. Still, at least I got to tell you about Harbin. Apologies.

[Harbin]

An interesting post for a couple of reasons, firstly the history of Harbin (a city I know well) which is in Northern China's Heilongjiang (Black Dragon) Province, borders Russia to the North and still has many old Russian buildings. I believe the old Opera House you mention (there is a modern one) is still standing, overlooking the Songhua River but is now downgraded to putting on ice skating and acrobatic performances for Korean tourists. I've been there, and I'm pretty sure that is the case. Harbin is very much a winter city with temparatures dropping to -40. In Lemeshev's day Harbin would have been full of white Russian Jews and traders escaping the Russian Revolution - they essentially built the city. Then came WW2, Japanese invasion, they all ran away to Shanghai where the same thing happened, many were declared stateless, some made it to Hong Kong and the remainder who survived all that ended up mainly in the US. However the city retains a strong Russian feel. See wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harbin
Fascinating place.

Now to Yurasovsky. According to my trusty sources he was apparently both a composer and conductor, and graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1938 where he had also studied with Myaskovsky.
One Opera: "A Thought About Opanas" (a small region near Kiev)
Four Ballets, including "Scarlet Sails" and "Under Italian Skies"
Four Symphonies (unknown, 1934, 1954 & 1964)
One Sinfonietta
Piano Concerto
Two Piano Quartets
Heroic Poem in Memory of Lenin
Various stage and cinema works, other poems, oratarios, cantatas and pieces for folk instrument orchestra (Bailaika etc).

So there you have it. Wrap up warm for Harbin and go see the Ice Festival, it's amazing. - Chris

Ho & Feonaov (Dictionary of Russian Composers, Greenwood Press 1985) list him as studying also under Liadov, then later winning the Anton Rubenstein prize. He later taught himself at the Moscow Conservatory as well as Kiev, students included Kogan, Weinberg and many others. Apparently Rimsky didn't rate him.
Two Operas: "Decemberists" and "Ak-Gul" (latter based on Uzbek themes)
Two Ballets: "Lake Prince" and "Paradise and the Peri"
Seven Symphonies
Violin Concerto
Violin Sonata
Two Piano Sonatas
Thirty (!!!) Pieces for Four Hands
and a wide variety of chamber, suites, poems, overtures, stage works, choral works and arrangements of works by Liadov and Vasilenko.
Autobiography: "Reminiscences About My Great Pupils, Friends & Colleagues" (Moscow, 1957)
also mentioned in biography "Scriabin" by Bowers, (Palo Alto, 1969).

As some might say, he seems a bit of a diamond geezer. I'd also like to hear more. - Chris