Early Departures

The other night at a production of “La Boheme” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, I witnessed the same disturbing scene I’ve seen over and over since my mother and I became Los Angeles Opera season ticket-holders.

Before Mimi took her last dying breath, the people beside us and around us were up and out of the theater, hurrying to be the first to get their cars out of the parking garage. Imagine this: You’re sitting at the opera transfixed by ethereal music with tears streaming down your face at the prospect of Rodolfo’s beloved Mimi dying of consumption, and people are stepping on your feet, talking about whether it would be fastest to go down the theater steps or through the back door.

Yes, my mother and I sit in the “cheap seats” at the very top of the theater, but we feel that this is no excuse for rudeness. Leaving a theater before paying the actors the tribute of final applause as they take their closing bows is simply disrespectful.

Incidentally, it took my mother and I only five minutes to drive out of the parking garage and onto the freeway, along with the rest of the audience who remained seated in the theater until the final curtain came down.

MELISSA ROMERO

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