Pearls and swine

The best booers, in my experience, are the Germans. There’s real purpose and thickness to their vocals. Italians hiss. The English grumble. The French? A bit of this, a bit of that. I approve of booing — or feedback, as I like to think of it. It’s galvanising and exhilarating, even when infuriating. Are you with them or not? One caveat: save it till after the performance, please.

The French do not hold to such niceties. One piggy old Parisian thought it appropriate to shout at the stage during Sunday’s performance of Opéra Bastille’s new Troyens. And not once. But three times. On that third cry, he got on to his trotters to hurl his abuse. Was it feeding time?

The cause of his ire, and to be fair the ire of much of the audience, who periodically joined the farm-fugitive in hooting at the stage, was the mis-en-scène of director Dmitri Tcherniakov.