Met opera presenters

[Flosshilde]

I've castigated others in the past when they have criticised presenters, & am reluctant to start another such thread, but has Margaret Junthwaite got worse this season? She seems to be making more mistakes & gushing more than last season - or has my tolerance reduced? Her 'guest', Ira Siff (some guest - on every week) is actually much better, but their 'conversations' are anything but - simply reading alternate paragraphs of the script. He'd be much better on his own.

[eucalyptus44]

Couldn't agree more; formulaic, wooden and over-scripted conversations. It's been getting on my nerves more than ever this evening and makes me particularly appreciate our own presenters.

[johnn10]

Voltaire would be proud of the undending "its all for the best " tone of their scripted contributions. Ditto those sycophantic (for which read reach for the sick bucket ) interval interviews with the artistes.

The whole thing needs a radical re-think

[Frances_iom]

Voltaire would be proud of the undending "its all for the best " tone of their scripted contributions. Ditto those sycophantic (for which read reach for the sick bucket ) interval interviews with the artistes.

The whole thing needs a radical re-think

I suspect they go down well with the locals - I just try to gauge when the opera should start and use the mute button to avoid them - the mute button on a remote control is now totally necessary in order to 'listen' to R3 - I find that these days stuck in the kitchen without access to such a device I prefer silence to the all too frequent jarring adverts and inanities imposed on the once intelligent station.

[DracoM]

The problem with the Met Opera tx is that it is a total package, sponsored by Texaco et al, and I suspect that MJ and IS are an integral, contracted part of that package. Whether the BBC has the legal right to opt out is a moot point. It certainly does from the ad breaks.

But I do agree there are numbers who would urge the R3 people to opt out of those interval interviews. How those interviewers do not get beaten up by singers who have just come steaming off stage having given their all, possibly having made mistakes or had diagreements with the pit etc I do not know.

I listen rather like spectators at F1 Grand Prix, hoping for a car crash. I would love to get a live relay of a presenter, for example, getting smacked in the mush by Bryn Terfel / Wotan and the sound of him walking away expletives unbleeped.

[Mr Pee]

If I could raise another problem with the Met- why on earth can't the audiences wait until the end of the music before yelling "Bravo" - there's always one- and bursting into applause? Take the end of La Boheme, Act 1 , which I've just watched courtesy of Sky Arts 2, the classic Zefirelli production, with Georgiou and Vargas. A really superb performance, but the orchestra had hardly begun playing the final chord before it was drowned out, and that seems par for the course. The same thing happened at the end of Hansel und Gretel, the Dream Pantomime, a magical moment, completely ruined by the applause.

It's really annoying.