What an opera director said to get fired
NewsPeter Konwitschny has been talking to BR about the ‘inappropriate and discriminatory’ comments for which he was fired by Nuremberg State Opera’s Trovatore.
He says that the incident occurred in a chorus rehearsal when he told the singers dressed as nuns to recoil at the sight of a gun. ‘One of the nuns was a black singer, Ms. M., with whom I’ve worked for a long time, and she turned away completely in fear of the gun. I interrupted and said: Ms. M., that’s different, when you’re in such a horror situation, your body wants to go, but your gaze sticks, you can’t stop it. And then I added: It’s like in Africa, if a lion comes towards you, then you can’t look away either. That’s it.’
He continued: ‘The next day I received an email saying that I had allegedly behaved in a ‘racially discrediting manner.’
Wow. That’s really tacky.
Well then….There ya go!
What he said wasn’t great, but surely an apology should suffice.
So he did behave in a racially discriminatory manner
If I met you Gareth and asked you which rugby side you followed would that be discriminatory ? I would just be being friendly.
Lawd
Really? It was a metaphor he could have addressed to anyone. If he had said it was a tiger, rather than a lion, would that have been acceptable? An alligator, bear, wolf? I don’t understand why it was deemed so offensive as to require his sacking.
Because of pernicious wokeitis
Is it racially discriminatory, if I try to explain something in a metaphor to someone, in what I think is a metaphor suited to where that person comes from?
His old man’s incompetence in this could be assuming someone black must be born in Africa, even today.
But is what he did by itself racially discriminatoy?
Is it racially discriminatory, if I tell a Russian to imagine something like a big bear coming out of the Taiga?
It is insulting, yes. First of all, because people in “Africa” don’t encounter lions enough to relate to such a metaphor. Such an assumption is already thoroughly uneducated and biased. Same with your example of bear and Russians.
Where someone “comes from” is something you gauge through actually listening and conversation. My nationality, race, where I grew up, and where I live now, are all different. I’d be annoyed if someone tried to come with a “metaphor” that they thought suited my physical appearance, and then to defend it by saying it’s just an effort to find appropriate and relatable metaphor. So no, it’s not appropriate, try harder.
Black fragility. Their self-esteem is so low they feel threatened by the simple mention of the word Africa, by statues, by monuments, by pancake boxes, etc. Newsflash: firing a director won’t improve an inferiority complex. Psychiatric help’s still needed
To be racist is to ascribe particular characteristics, especially negative ones, to entire groups of people on the basis of race. This remark certainly fits the bill. I sometimes wonder, what are the comments that *don’t* make it past moderation on this site?
Brilliant comment. Please watch Dr. Glenn Loury and Dr. John McWhorter discuss all this BS on “SubStack: the Glenn Show”.
By far the best comment here in the past months.
Do you know if the black singer was the one who filed the complaint?
You people like to complain about oversensitive white snowflakes so much – if you don’t know this for sure, you should keep in mind the possibility that some white person was so offended that they complained.
And one still wonders why blacks aren’t hired on and women are avoided….
Black fragility victims and feminists need too much coddling to be employed. They clearly need intensive psychiatric treatment above all else as they cannot function outside of their safe spaces.
Their constant, nauseating mental breakdowns block up the other professionals including ones of the same race and sex who loose vital productivity during these offensive fits exclusively directed at white males. Time to “do more with less” insecure blacks and women who can no longer display respect for fellow colleagues!
If one wonders why Black folks and women aren’t hired as easily, your comment tells us exactly…but not in the way you think it does.
I’d agree with you Manny – get yourself off to a psychiatrist if your warped racial theories don’t get better soon …
Personally, I think that was at best racial stereotyping and at worst pretty offensive. And I am certainly not part of the woke brigade. He might as well have said why not scuttle back to your mud hut? But I do think an apology, if forthcoming, would have sufficed.
Big chip on the shoulder
If this is the whole truth, then it does seems harsh. One wonders if there’s any previous.
I’m so glad to be retired. In my lecturing career, if I’d been focussed on avoiding career threatening landmines like this, I’d have done a much poorer job in conveying what the students were paying the university for me to convey.
Very early on after I moved to the US, I did accidentally suggest that students might appreciate a break to step outside for a f*g. Since the word’s British meaning was well known to them, it got a laugh. These days, I’d be out on my ear.
I feel that he must be right about the lion. Very good example, and nothing to apologize.
A few thoughts:
— we all need to think before talking. He could have asked her to imagine a confrontation with a wolf in the forest.
— we all need thicker skin–the ability to shrug our shoulders and move on.
— we need to address similar incidents in a brief, private conversation with the offender.
— we only have K’s side of the story. Who knows what else has gone on.
What inane sensitivity you express.
An absolutely disgusting remark. He is a superb director, but if he can’t treat people with basic respect, there is no reason for people to tolerate him.
More and more resembling the USSR and the gulags every single day of the week. Progressives must be feel proud and powerful by now!!
Interesting irony; the rise of puritanism in an increasingly permissive society.
That’s all? It is actually a vividly appropriate comparison to what he wants.If he had said the same to a white artist, would the result have been the same?
Only he can say with honesty whether he might have used the same comparison of the artist he was coaching had been white.
I think here we are looking at hyper-sensitivity, and all that the artist was owed was an apology if he had caused discomfort. Not his job.
For the love of God: I used to get into arguments — occasionally quite vehement — with transplanted South Africans at parties when they referred to their former staffs as “just like children.” I found their contempt for their black fellow-countrymen revolting and ignorant, based on their endemic racism.
But if every black now is such a delicate flower that a man has to lose his livelihood over a perfectly apt if (possibly) slightly insensitive comment, then perhaps I did not give the Setheffricans enough credit.
What ever happened to give and take? Why are responses so ruthless? If the artist was seriously offended — I do not know these people, or their histories, and it may be worse than this anecdotal evidence implies — could it not have been discussed? If the management is that sensitive to any of this sort of thing, then the artist would have got a hearing, and the offender would have had an opportunity to take a wigging, if appropriate, and apologise.
Everyone needs to man up. And, yes, I know the offendee was female. Grow up.
An example of generation gap. Each generation has a mind-set which is not necessarily what the next generation can understand. It doesn’t mean that the older generation is prejudiced. It’s that the older generation is not self-conscious using everyday language. The analogy which he offered of a lion, and ones reaction to it, is not, on its face, racist. It was what it was, an example of how to perform.
Singers tend to be high strung, and emotional. Which is, of course, one of the reasons they can convey the content of music so beautifully. I suspect, the reaction of the artist was an overreaction.
If she knew the director for a long time, the issue might have been influenced by earlier encounters, or criticisms. Let’s give both of them the benefit of doubt. Time to stop trashing people for perceived slights.
As a lion I resent being stereotyped. Sometimes I just walk towards people to say hello. We’ve all got feelings you know! Not saying you people don’t make a delicious dinner though.
Puh-leeze! Lighten up, everybody.
Well, I suppose he could have said: ….Suppose you are in the far Northern Hemisphere and a Grizzly Bear is coming at you…..
Or “India” and “tiger.” Or “Green Bay Wisconsin” and “Chicago Bears fan”
In Peter Land, this is tame. We’ve all heard him say far more tasteless things than this. Laughable this is what gets him fired.
Seriously, why do they stage this opera then at all. The work is racist and discriminating by itself. Look at the second act “La gitana” (– Die Zigeunerin). The German woko-haram left-green filthy paranoid society has a serious social debate about the fact if a barbecue sauce and a standard dish in most of the canteens is allowed to be named “Zigeuner-Schnitzel” and “Zigeuner-Sauce”.
Woko-haram: must remember that! Neologism of the year.
What an absolute load of b”llocks
Learn a lesson: don’t voice an opinion on anything whatsover unless you are with family or close friends. If in public, or on record, pretend to be deaf and dumb. Ooops: “hearing impaired, and speech impaired”.
Just live like you were in North Korea you mean?
I’m going to guess that this wasn’t the only such incident, I’m going to guess that it was the most recent one and someone decided… OK, das ist genug.
He doesn’t claim this was the only one, we just presume that because it is all he mentions.
“It’s like in Moravia, if a boar comes towards you, then you can’t look away either.”
Konwitschny would probably say:
1) I”m not Moravian, I’m German.
2) I’ve never been to Moravia, I was born and raised in Germany.
3) I’ve never seen a boar, I’m not some Czech peasant, I’m a cultured cosmopolitan German.
4) I wouldn’t know what to do if a boar charged me, I’ve spent my life in the arts and corridors of opera houses.
Got it?