SwiftVets.com

[SBD]

Sorry, I couldn't resist posting this article. I wonder who the middle aged woman was? Wasn't Kerry married by 1978?

Copyright 1978 The Washington Post

October 22, 1978, Sunday, Final Edition
SECTION: Style; Miss Manners; F1

The Cavil Chorus By Judith Martin

VIOLENCE HAS again broken out in the opera house. The very same gentleman of Miss Manners' acquaintance who was felled last season at the Kennedy Center by an elderly party wielding a rolled newspaper, has suffered another blow in the hazardous pursuit of music. This time it was a fist from a clear two rows behind him that got him in the back,
at a performance of the Metropolitan Opera in Lincoln Center in New York.

In both cases, the victim was attacked after the performance was concluded, during the curtain calls. The terrorist in each case claimed to have been provoked by the fact that the target was in a standing position. The gentleman does not deny this, but states in his defense that the occasion for which he was standing was a theatrical convention known as the "standing ovation."

Here is his version of the incident:
"I have an eighe opera subscription, and this was at 'Billy BUdd. When the curtain went down, the lady next to me got up and went out. I had to stand to let her get by. Down in front, people were already standing, and I thought, 'We have a standing ovation going here, so I might as well stand.' I was the first in my row to do so -- you know how these things start in the front of the orchestra and move back -- but I would have been standing anyway, within 40 or 50 seconds. I suspect that in 60 seconds, that man two rows behind me was standing, too. But the first I knew of him was a fist that came at me, from two rows back, between people's heads. It caught me in the middle of the back -- I think I have a case of assault and battery -- and there was shouting with it, that I couldn't understand. I turned around and saw a relatively young--looking
chap in a grayish--green tweed suit. He started pointing to a middle--aged lady next to him with opera glass, indicating that I was blocking her view. I sat down. Maybe I should have hit him, but it was two rows back, and my arms aren't as long as his. These were subscriptions seats, and no doubt I'm going to see him again for the next opera."

Miss Manners is quite shocked at this entire business. Viiolence in response to music is one thing -- it has been pointed out to Miss Manners that the lady who lost control at a Stravinsky premiere and expressed her dissatisfaction by means of her umbrella was merely reacting to the music -- but the descent of the curtain removes that excuse. After a performance is concluded, members of the audience who wish to express their appreciation or look of it by means of oral expression, in English or Italian, or body posture may do so, but the physical manifestation may include walking out, standing and clapping or sitting tight. A standing ovation is a legitimate reaction; a flying fist is not.

As for the gentleman's problem of retaliation, Miss Manners does not condone [WORD ILLEGIBLE] even as a defense. Nevertheless, she sympathizes with the gentleman's need to express him indignation. The 10--or 15--minutes cries of pain from the torture in "Tosca" might convey the point. And "Billy Budd," for that matter, contains quite an effective xpression of agony, from a flogged seaman, that should register the emotion on an opera--goer.

GRAPHIC: Picture 1; no caption; Picture 2, John Kerry testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971, by UPI

SBD

[LewWaters]

You wouldn't happen to have a link to that article somewhere, would you? If so, please post it.
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Clark County Conservative