Days before, the notification of my family chat group popped up:
“The rudeness of Nicole Kidman- got whacked during the standing ovation”,
said the title of the article. I love visiting theatres, that’s not news, I assume. During my life in London and Paris, I’ve been visiting theatres for their opera and ballet production designed by each theatrical company. As I read this article, I couldn’t help but to click and discover what’s going on with this event.
Alas, the beloved Nicole Kidman was attacked by an audience behind her while she stood up and applauded during the curtain call. Keith Urban, his husband claimed that they didn’t know that it was against the rule to have the standing ovation at the end of the opera performance.
I put down my phone, immersed myself in thought and looked back on my experiences of attending the opera, is it truly against the rule of opera? While almost every performance received claps and cheers of thunder and there were always numerous audiences that stood up and shout to express their passionate appreciation.
Say, was Nicole as rude as the title of that media?
Encouraged by my professional habit, I dig into this news a little bit further. It was just a piece of news extracted and translated from an interview Keith did with a local talk show, “The Kyle & Jackie O Show”, in Australia. There, he shared their abrupt opera experience in January. Now let us put aside how Nicole actually did during her standing ovation and focus on the “standing ovation” itself.
Discovering the origin of “ovation”, it was a tradition to celebrate the triumph of the commander in Roman history. It was an extreme honour for the commander to receive a public ovation because his victory needed to be approved by meeting certain criteria.
The emergence of “standing ovation” started to appear in the 17th century, with the flourishing development of the theatrical culture.
At first, only the ground-breaking-ly magnificent performance, certain star actresses and actors would receive the standing ovation from audiences. For example, the prima ballerina Irina Kolesnikova who is famous for her performance of the Black and White Swan, whom I interviewed before, is the quintessential artist to receive a standing ovation from the traditional point of view.
As the times advance, standing ovation began to become a common way for the public to show their supports to the royalty or politicians after their speech or battle cry. At the same time, it has also become prevailing to do the standing ovation to whichever performance and whoever the artist is in the theatre. Everyone- if you have that courage, can take the lead to stand up and applause, and shout “Bravo!” or “Brava!”
Dear, who then is the rude one? Nicole Kidman, the audience who whacked Nicole for an unknown reason or the one who penned down this title?
