Rugby Union is not opera
Danny Stephens takes a look at how pre-match entertainment clashes with the main event at rugby matches once more. What is your view? E-Mail us and we'll publish the feelings of the fans!
With the Wallabies reeling form three consecutive defeats, Jeremy Balkin – a reader from Australia – reflects on what went wrong and what needs putting right.
We had it all at the weekend. Tackles, tries, punch-ups, citings, bloodied faces, and comical refereeing accents. A good job too. Had the game been as dismal as the pre-match, there might have been a riot.
It has already been writ in this space, that the way in which the build-up to an international game has been given over to an assortment of stage performers trying to turn what should be a rugby fans' celebration of national unity into a solo glamour performance foisted upon us, is ruining the spectacle for those who have sacrificed various other pleasures to get to the game.
Some were even good enough to write in to this site and agree, many citing the need for a campaign of sorts to give the pre-match participation back to those who know how a rugby atmosphere is best whipped up.
Obviously then, there is feeling in popular rugby circles that something is wrong.
It ought to be immediately obvious to anybody who listens to these wailers that the national anthem is a song that EVERYBODY knows well, and EVERYBODY has their ideas as to how it ought to be performed. To hear it performed badly is a serious offence that would have the singers being made to do an array of top-row punishments in the post-match fines meetings.
Yet so far in this Tri-Nations we are still being forced to button lip and let somebody else sing our songs badly. We have had the Choirs of Cape Town (who admittedly were quite good, but were not helped by the sheer volume of the PA system), the Serenaders of Sydney, and the Pop singers of Perth. At the weekend we had the Din and Dirge of Dunedin.
South Africa's national anthem is one of the most intense, emotional, and tuneful in the world. The weekend's strangled singer ignored every facet of intensity, emotion, and musical beauty inherent within it, and turned it into a stageless, faceless, character-less opera.
African Xhosa, Zulu and Sotho women, whose clear, still, and rough throaty voices carry the words of the first part of the song so wonderfully must have clapped their hands to their mouths to stifle screams of terror – sad if they did, for such screams might have been more pleasant to listen to.
South African men, who, without exception, appreciate 'Die Stem' with awe-inspiring glee would have been either pinching themselves, or peering confusedly into their beer cans in search of the hallucinogen upon hearing what the woman did to their singularly masculine song.
The songstress' voice warbled and oscillated so much that you wondered if there wasn't a film crew somewhere filming an advertisement for a new ultra-strong type of glass. Either that or she was privately auditioning for something. The Otago opera company's forthcoming performance of Bizet's 'Carmen' perhaps.
Either way, the expressionless face and poorly-tannoyed din served only to drive neutrals' ears deep into their skulls and ruin the opportunity for the small troop of SA fans – who had travelled a very long way at great expense, and for whom the anthem was written in the first place – to rejoice in their presence on the sporting stage of another country. Even the players gave up singing, and they are the ones supposed to be singing it loudest of all.
This was the Din.
On to New Zealand. This was the Dirge. The critical error was asking a bass singer to sing it. Bass singers struggle to up the tempo of a song – it is practically impossible to make a lively bass melody – yett bores you by the end of the first line, and inspires about as much emotion as a skunk.
This guy sang it slowly. Very slowly. And deeply enough to worry the loudspeakers, producing a vibrating mess of over-loaded electronica. Again, the players gave up, and we obviously couldn't hear the crowd – the air was so thick with disjointed soundwaves I could barely see my neighbour – but the usual post-anthem crescendo of anticipation from fans in a nationalistic fever whose hair follicles have stiffened and whose adrenaline glands are pumping was marked by its absence.
There was no music – well, no musicians anyway, there was tannoy muzak from a CD which had been nicked from a Dunedin office block lift – and no vocals from the fans. The only crescendo heard was the collective sigh of relief as we prepared for the Haka.
Rugby union is not opera. It is a hard and down-to-earth sport where survival of the fittest holds full sway and the ugliest generally win by being ugly, which is how all the spectators like it. Pretty people are targeted and cut down to size as soon as possible. The only semblance of costume is the uniform jerseys worn by the players and fans, and the only props to hand generally spend the duration buried at the bottom of a mass of sweating meat.
Spectators like to drink, sing, and have a good time at rugby matches. It is not like soccer, where if they are not somehow stimulated into having a good time they will begin to fight each other and destroy things. Rugby people already know how to have a good time, yet they are the ones being denied the opportunity. It must make them almost mad enough to punch somebody.
It is about time the organisers of international matches realised that rugby people like to sing, and like to be the ones singing the loudest. Hopefully this column can nudge them in the right direction. Upon that realisation, it will surely be only be a matter of time before they let us all try, and get rid of the wailing women and cacophonous cretins who rarely look as though they have either picked up ball, sharpened stud, spat mud out of gum-shield or shoulder-charged rib-cage in anger.
But if you want an honest, down-to-earth and public reaction from the people who count the most, look at the New Zealand players after the anthems at the weekend. We can't think of any other reason why you would get down on the ground, stick out your tongue, pop out your eyes and pretend to slit your own throat after your own national song!
This, then is the start of our campaign to get the pre-match back for the fans and the players. Drop us a line with your views and we will publish and keep on publishing down the weeks until someone finally listens and empties the bilge tanks. Maybe by November's Tests we can all be singing loudest again.
