MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Barenboim halts La Scala concert to reprimand “badly educated” fans

Daniel Barenboim KBE upset by audience taking photographs at La Scala

Musician upset by noisy, flashy picture taking audience - several previous warnings were of no use.

 Argentine-born conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim, KBE, has interrupted a concert Tuesday to tick off the audience for taking photographs, slamming flash-happy fans at Milan's prestigious opera house as “badly educated”.

Barenboim, during a performance of Schubert at La Scala, warned the audience - and one woman in particular - that he had asked several times for people not to take photographs and was beginning to lose his temper.

“Madam, I am trying to give you my best, but you have no respect for it!” he said. “Those who take photographs during concerts are badly educated,” he added.

“I have asked at every concert. The first time nicely, but now it's serious,” he said, before returning to the stage to begin the sonata again, according to media reports on Tuesday.

Regardless of his unchallenged musical talent, Barenboim gained additional world fame for playing in Israel in 2001 some works of Richard Wagner, an author often associated with the Nazi régime.

Barenboim received the KBE - the highest British honour for foreign citizens, in June, 2011, for his tireless campaigning for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Barenboim holds citizenship of Argentina, Israel, Palestine and Spain. He lives in Berlin.