Most choral singers must have had this experience: of trying to engage another in the choir in conversation, who has clearly decided that you aren’t in their league and can safely be ignored. I’ve already written about the time I rejoined a choir for a concert and only the conductor’s wife of the current singers spoke to me, and all those who weren’t regular members were shunted onto the back row regardless of height. Despite this experience I sang with them again a couple of years later. On my way to the first rehearsal I was approached by one of the other singers who on getting close said ‘Sorry, I thought you were a member of my choir!’ before walking away. To be fair, others did speak to me, though some spoiled the effect of familiarity by getting my name wrong.
It isn’t one particular choir; at a social event for another one I and one of the first sopranos arrived some time before anyone else. I can still recall the look of horror spreading across her face as she realised she had no choice but to talk to a second soprano!
It’s possible to find individual singers acting like this in a choir of any standard, and it’s only when it starts to infect an entire section that it really matters. For obvious reasons it tends to happen more in good choirs and it was rife in Cambridge; perhaps many people grow out of it when they cease to be students. I’ve come across very little of it in choirs which exist to visit cathedrals.
I suspect I was guilty of this myself when I went on tour with a well-known choir some years ago, towards singers in my section whom I suspected of having been included because their husbands were needed for tenor or bass sections (I’ve already written about this). Also my frustration with the lack of opportunities in Manchester and the feeling that mostly I was singing below my natural level must have been apparent at times.