Domingo will stage his next contest in Moscow

Karl says:

If you want to perform today you have to choose between working for a murdering dictator or a woke mob of morons.

Nijinsky says:

I can’t believe this stuff is still going on with Placido Domingo, except that the new superstition in society, other than sacrificing goats or worshiping “Gods” is celebrity obsession, and too many fall for it. People’s whole self identity starts hinging on knowing who is the truly great one, and the “great” ones can do who knows what, and it’s still people’s mission to know they are the great ones, having been fed accordingly. And now national politics gets involved!? When Dutoit is barred from North America Martha Argerich stops going there to perform, but Russia picks up Dutoit and Domingo. Still pretty much regardless of what the people do in contrast to national politics finding another country’s behavior unfavorable because they are celebrities and it’s those other people one is finding fault with, of that other culture, or other country.

What exactly has Domingo done to promote the very activity that all the music he exploits comes from? If the amount of interest, the amount of funding, and the amount of performing of music actually was going on, or rather the lack of it was going on in just about all of the time that all of the music he and most of his celebrity mob exploit, then most of what he uses (and needs, and has needed, and would need) to maintain his career, most of it wouldn’t be there. That’s simply the truth. Add it up. Look how much music from those time periods was live composers who otherwise wouldn’t have had a livelihood to compose compared to now. Let alone that many of the composers now played, or heralded because they did something unique, didn’t play the game, didn’t follow the mold, didn’t cave in to what would work in said fashion and so had difficulties in that time that now regarding how one is supposed to play the game would have again left the present time without the contribution that’s exploited, and purported to be the art that’s loved. With all of their “love” of the art, they might be killing the very thing they say they love.

Added to this, the other genres of art that aren’t losing their audience like Classical music is, they still have more actual creative artists contributing to the output. Whether it’s other genres of music, the theater, movies, visual arts, literature. Whatever. They all have more creative input from the present generation. All of them.

And what’s left, the whole body that’s being exploited, it really isn’t there for Joshua Bell to have a joy ride or behave like a conquistador putting his “mark” on the repertoire, for Renee Fleming to have pastries named after her, for Domingo to indulge in his macho gusto akin to loading most soft drinks with sugar or caffeine and have the mob think it’s refreshing. And God Bless it, but I don’t think they, nor the whole exploitive mob that comes tumbling after, have any idea they might be strangling off the very source that they exploit, and purport to love. I think they are out of control. Try to point it out, and you stand at a point to hear the old worn out story that anyone caring to put it on the line is actually just jealous, or it doesn’t go along with their pampering, their joy ride, or is insulting them; or even that there’s something wrong with someone that needs music for a deeper purpose. Like trying to convince an addict they don’t need the next dose, and anyone pointing out what that would do is crazy. Many earning more money per year than enough regional orchestras in the US full of dedicated musicians who don’t need all the glamour to keep their discipline or commitment going. You can add that up as well. Take a whole array of them out of the picture and see how much money there would be left over for more basic needs beyond the celebrity ardor. And I see them as creating the loss rather than being one. Let alone anyone that simply honors music for what it is, its nature, and goes there with their insecurities rather than self pampering and self promotions. Let alone countries where there aren’t even regional orchestras, perhaps instead cultures where music is still spiritual rather than a stimulant, a drug.

I completely don’t understand it anymore, other than it’s things gone out of whack before people see what they actually are doing. All starting with instrumentalism and the industrial age. People mesmerized with “ability,” for some reason called virtuosity, which seems to completely warp the stem virtue out of context. I think in the Renaissance virtuosity was something different. Are we going to get the same dark ages that preceded the Renaissance when the Roman empire and its “abilities” crashed, like all empires eventually do? Like the amount of technological and industrial developments polluting the whole planet in order to glorify technical “abilities.” Or “profits.” Plastic Islands in the Oceans, Global Warming that people again will deny, because they think being human or having opposable thumbs for harnessing one’s environment for gain is so much what life is about one can negate any damage done, also denying methods that are more sustainable, because you can’t charge for it adding up “profit” while destroying part of the mother earth you’re charging to deplete. Let alone methods even more efficient than that whose very production has been suppressed and the truths evidenced by them called unscientific. Gasoline you can charge for, but not the sun or the void. At least not yet. Has that been outgrown or not, that one sacrifices virgins to the “sun!?” Is it better to let Domingo have them, or present day Diaghilevs like Weinstein!?

I don’t really care other than trying to point it out. I could die tomorrow, but having experienced music for what it is, and what it can be, I’d take that with me to be part of forever, and no one could take that away from me, nor have they, nor are they. And it’s there for anyone, and everyone, you just have to go there. And I don’t think you can buy it. And I don’t think you can exploit it to be “famous.”

And I seriously question whether winning a competition would help, or even having the kind of career one is supposed to be zealous of…..