Carlo Rizzi was applauded for his actions
Is that the phone ringing?
How did the audience react?
David Jackson, a BBC employee who was in the audience, said Milan-born Carlo, 59, received a round of applause after he called out the offence. The mobile ringing happened in the first 20 minutes of the performance and all was well after that.
What did Carlo say?
He told i: “I started to conduct it very softly, very quietly and then immediately a brrr brrr ringtone started. So I just said: ‘telephone’. Then at a very poignant moment you hear the phone. I am sorry the moment is destroyed.”
At this point he turned to the audience and asked whoever it was to switch off the mobile phone. “The audience applauded and we carried on,” he added. “I think it is a lack of consideration and respect for the artists and for the public. Live performance is beautiful: it is in the moment and full of emotion. It is very simple: just switch off your phone.”
This is not the first time an audience member has disrupted a performance with their mobiles.
In 2005 the late Richard Griffiths was so incensed when a mobile went off for the third time during a performance of Heroes in which he was performing at Wyndham’s Theatre in London that he asked for the offending audience member to leave. Daniel Craig and Benedict Cumberbatch have also lamented the distraction of mobile phones when they perform on the stage.
What advice does Carlo have for habitual concert ringers?
He says: “If this is what you do when you go to a live performance then perhaps it would be better if you buy a recording and listen to it in your living room and you can be in your shorts and eating crisps. That’s fine. But not in a confined space with live performers working their guts out.”
