Roger Wright's debut season of Proms this summer was a great success. But no concert stood out quite as exceptionally as that of the 2007 performance of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, under the then 26-year-old Gustavo Dudamel (pictured, below right). That now legendary concert, which began with a hyper-intense Shostakovich 10th and ended in an exuberant celebration of North and South American dance music, was a breakthrough event. No orchestral concert in living memory has created a bigger stir.
Ever since, London's concert halls have been fighting to secure a return trip from this most alluring and marketable of modern orchestras. The good news is that they have succeeded. The Venezuelans will be back in London in April 2009, this time in the Royal Festival Hall, for two concerts—one featuring Bartók and Tchaikovsky, the other Stravinsky and Latin American composers. A certain scepticism may have begun to creep into some of Dudamel's recent notices, but these concerts are guaranteed to be among classical music's highest profile events of 2009.
Now for the bad news. At the time of writing, in early September, the two concerts were already almost sold out. There were 11 seats remaining for the first, and nine for the second. By the time you read this column, chances are there will be no tickets left. And in the run-up to the concert, with newspaper previews and television programmes about the Venezuelans, tickets will have been sold out for six months.
The Venezuelans are perfectly placed to lure the uninitiated into classical music. But there is a paradox at the heart of modern ticketing systems that prevents them from doing so. In many ways, it has never been easier to get tickets—to any kind of event. Many of the old complaints about exclusivity, and even about prices, are exaggerated. Yet thanks in large measure to the openness of the ticketing system, it has simultaneously never been more difficult to get into events. This is because the new keys to accessing performances are not money, social privilege or even taste and inclination. Instead, the keys are knowledge about when the tickets are going on sale and familiarity with how to get the best out of internet ticketing systems. And this information is generally in the hands of those who are already fans, who duly buy up all the tickets.
Classical music is not alone in being hurt by this paradox. Something very similar has happened with the RSC's latest production of Hamlet—starring the current Doctor Who, David Tennant, in the title role—which opened in Stratford in July 2008 to enthusiastic reviews. Well before the first night, there was not a ticket to be had. Then came the reviews and the other media coverage, which created huge further demand. The RSC announced that there would be a London run from December to January, with tickets to go on sale to the public on 12th September. Yet in late August, it had to admit there would actually be no tickets available on that date, since they had already been snapped up in priority booking by RSC members.
The Venezuelans have been similarly blighted. The Southbank Centre ticketing system is transparent, reasonably simple to use and not massively expensive—tickets are much cheaper than those for a rock concert or Premier League football match, for example. By the usual criteria, therefore, it is fair. Yet it is the Centre's existing audience that is best placed to take advantage of such ticketing systems. The unknowledgeable and unorganised will struggle to get a look in. And, in another paradox, the earlier the tickets go on sale, the worse it is for this potential audience.
What can venues and organisations do? One answer might be always to hold back some tickets for sale on the day of performance—as Covent Garden, so often dismissed as elitist, has always done. But we cannot continue to ignore the problem. Otherwise, as we see with the case of the Venezuelans, opportunities to showcase live orchestral music to new audiences will continue to be thrown away.
What, no Mozart?
Glyndebourne's general director, David Pickard, has just announced his 2009 festival season, which marks the 75th anniversary of the Sussex festival. There will be operas by Verdi, Purcell, Dvorák, Handel, Donizetti and Wagner. That means, for the second year running, that there will be no Mozart at Glyndebourne. Yet Mozart is the composer on whose operas Glyndebourne was founded and on whom it has long prospered. From 1934 until 2006, no full season passed at Glyndebourne without at least one Mozart opera in the schedule, and sometimes as many as five. The current artistic policy in Sussex seems set on making Glyndebourne just like everywhere else. I don't see much to celebrate there.
