Photos of… what?
Opera companies did not want me to take pictures during a performance and I could understand why—the sound of the shutter of a single lens reflex was loud and singers found it off-putting. No digital cameras then!
One company were great. They invited me to a short rehearsal and asked me to do some long lens shots from a fair distance away from the stage to see if that would make a difference but unfortunately the singers, who by their training and nature are very sound sensitive, still could hear the shutter so I didn’t get to photograph a performance. If only I’d had a rangefinder camera, like a Leica, but the SLR was my workhorse and I simply couldn’t afford two camera systems.
I was grateful that they tried, though, because I love opera. From Monteverdi to Britten and beyond, grand opera or operetta, from Verdi to Lehar (although I have to confess a special weakness for Mozart and Puccini), I love it all. But there is one composer I really cannot get away with. That I really do not like…
So when the theatre was showing the entire Ring Cycle, not only did I not get to do any pics but I didn’t even go to the theatre because I am—and I say this most fervently—emphatically not a Wagnerian. OK, there are a few good tunes, but…
Anyway, that’s not the point. I just knew that this was one time I would not be at the Empire, so when I got a phone call asking me to go in to take some shots my gob was well and truly smacked.
“But,” I said, “opera companies don’t…”
“It’s not production shots we want,” I was told. “It’s shots of the audience. Every seat in the house is sold and nobody can remember the last time that happened. We’ve got to have a record of it!”
(Actually it has happened since, a lot. The big West End musicals really do pull in the punters nowadays and shows like The Book Of Mormon, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Kinky Boots, Wicked—even oldies like The King and I—put bums on almost every seat in the house. The stage is now much bigger—the biggest between Leeds and Edinburgh—and the Ambassador Theatre Group which manages the Empire nowadays has the clout to attract the big ‘uns to Sunderland because they have so many venues across the country to book them into, something that wasn’t possible when it was the Civic Theatre, run by the council.)
Anyway, in the fifteen minutes before the curtain went up, I took loads of shots of full seats, from stalls to gallery. It would have been great if I’d been able to shoot from the stage but of course that would have revealed the opening scene and that was a big no-no!
Still, it was, shall we say, a different job. In some ways a bit like the time I was asked to photograph a pit heap. I kid you not! I was and I still don’t know why, but I was paid so I did it.
(I remember thinking at the time, “some photographers get to photograph naked ladies; I get pit heaps. Life sure as hell ain’t fair!”)