Yannick’s outfits are getting as exotic as Yuja’s
OperaReports from the pit at the Metropolitan Opera suggest that their music director is putting his own wardrobe ahead of more important musical considerations.
In The Champion, we are told, he’s wearing a boxer’s satin warm-up jacket and pants every night, taking his bow with the hood up or down.
In Bohème he seems to be wearing satin pyjamas (pictured).
The maestro’s costume is more eye-catching than ones on stage.
Does he need to tone it down?
No.
Perhaps the Maestro fears, most probably correctly, that he is irrelevant.
Hence, the wardrobe.
Who cares what Yannick wears? Anyone who goes to an opera to watch the conductor is missing the point. Isn’t it the music that’s supposed to matter?
Usually you can’t see him/her from the theatre anyway! A real disadvantage when a genuine heart-throb had the baton (Kleiber)!
exactly and that’s why often looking at the Maestri – especially when they were on a level as Carlos Kleiber or Karajan
Yannick is probably the most sort after conductor in the world by musicians! Who cares? He’s fabulous.
I’m sure he would agree with you 100%…
Yuja’s outfits are not “exotic”, they are skimpy, consisting of a floss and a few patches.
If you go to Zefferelli’s Bohème and your eyes are fixed on the orchestra pit, then don’t bother going to the opera.
The photo itself shows the concertmaster in a grey t-shirt.
If Yannick started wearing thongs and sashaying on stage in stilettoes, and looked as hot as Yuja, I say more floss and pasties for both of them.
even at Zefirelli‘s Bohème in Vienna long time ago everyone was watching Kleiber – Freni and Pavarotti explained his phenomenon often
Yes!! And who in the world could have blamed them??!! He’s still so very much missed by me.
I guess it’s just the beginning.
Yes the beginning of the end.
good for him! Have you worn coattails before? Very inhibiting for movement
Yes, I have worn them many times with great success…as have the greatest maestros throughout the world over the last century.
and yet theyre still the most movement-trapping clothes to wear. It’s enforced by tradition because musicians historically wore the same clothes as butlers. Are YOU content with musicians of such a fine caliber being relegated to “butlers for high society”?
Not really. High society wore tailcoats as well. That’s why it’s called evening wear.
Nearly 4 decades as a performing professional musician. I’ve never heard one complaint from musicians about their concert attire…nor have I heard anyone thinking they are a “butler for society”.
Furtwangler seemed to manage in a tux. Actually, I don’t mind them going a bit more casual than that, but there is a huge gap between a tux and pajamas and he should have found something in that gap, as he usually does.
OK BUT ARE PAJAMAS THE ALTERNATIVE?
Depends on the fly design.
So much for the howls of ‘opera is about the music, who cares what it looks like’ we get every time on this blog whenever there’s a discussion about innovative stagings…
The music is the same – if you don’t like the outfit, focus on that. Or on the stage.
What difference what you wear. My mother
Bought me army surplus clothes for school.
And i managed to have a good education
Ah yes — another day, another pearl of wisdom, from Emil of Montreal…..
This is straight out of the Netrebkos’ H&M garishness. And we thought Levine’s towel was gross and in bad taste.
ewww, why did you taste Levine’s towel?
His wardrobe is silly, but irrelevant. He’s a mediocre conductor: loud and fast.
Jimmy or Yannick?
Loud and fast fully describes the performance of Bruckner’s 7th I heard him conduct in Washington. It was awful.
We do need a serious discussion about concert attire. We still wear tails in Chicago, and I try to imagine someone coming to their first concert and seeing us dressed up like 19th century butlers. Inevitably, some must think, “This is archaic and weird, and has nothing to do with the world I actually live in. I doubt I am going to like this.”
For decades, I played quartet concerts in the Chicago Public Schools, introducing students to our extraordinary repertoire. Back in the 1980s and early 90s, we used to wear a jacket and tie to the shows. After a show in a West Side neighborhood with significant challenges (but great kids) one young man came up to me afterwards. “I really like your music, but can I aks [sic] you something? How come y’all look like detectives?” Middle age white guys in bad suits…he had a point. I never wore a jacket and tie to one of those shows again.
make it concert black! totally neutral and you can wear whatever makes you feel comfortable while playing! I once saw my teacher play in a t-shirt in the pit. When I asked him why, he simply said “you know how humid it gets down there?”
Totally black outfits are always on-trend hip. The SoHo look.
What next the pianist wears black. The audience wears black.
The piano is black.
Like funeral directors.
Contrary to many beliefs, surveys show also young people in their majority like the cermonial character of classical concerts. The opportunity to get dressed for a special occasion.
Enough with the sloppy and lazy casualness. It needs some effort to elevate oneself to higher levels. While attire is not of the highest priority, it certainly helps.
(also, what’s your problem looking like a (late) 19th century gentleman, for playing music that old, and older, on instruments literally that old or older, or at least in a design from that era? In concert halls of which the best are also that old.)
Source: trust me bro.
https://miz.org/sites/default/files/documents/VDKDUmfrage_EMusik_Auswertung07.pdf
Butlers? You do realize that evening wear is what high society still wears to formal events. Maybe not in your uncivilized country.
You think wearing all black like the stage crew looks better?
1) Trifonov is the worst in trying his best to look like a middle age accountant with an office above a pizza parlor.
He is actually a very handsome guy, and with the right stylist at DG early on in his career, he dressed and looked sharp, young, and smoldering, not like his current look of a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman at the end of a long day.
2) It isn’t a question of tuxedoes or suits, it’s a question of cheap tuxedoes and cheap suits. Everyone can spot a cheap tux or a cheap suit a mile away, and most people look like a waiter in a tux rather than the patron in a tux.
Older concertgoers think they are automatically dressing “up” just because they throw on a suit. What young people see is an old, out of style, saggy suit you’ve been wearing the last 20 years, and that their designer T-Shirt costs more than your entire ensemble.
Which is your favourite recording of Trifonov? What is it that you like particularly about it? (You don’t have to write more than four paragraphs.)
With all his millions, Muti needs a tailor. His concert jacket is 3 times larger than necessary and it’s not because he needs to move, he barely moves at all. He needs to iron it too. So much for Italian fashion. Fashion faux pas
That is unusual. Italians are very well dressed.
In Milan they have wonderful clothes shops
Pyjamas more important than his music making, another gimmick, and a total distraction from the music as her knickers and tights are.
What he needs to tone down is the volume of the orchestra. Singers get drowned out every time he conducts.
Luisi would have been a much better conductor for (that) opera, particularly for the singers. But who cares about the music anyway…
Exactly!!
Clearly this is a photo from a rehearsal where it doesn’t matter much what one wears.
A rehearsal or a pajama party on Fire Island.
Casual attire that provides freedom of movement is one thing; poor taste is quite another.
And what the h*ll is going on with his hair?
It’s just receding – as is that of most men of his age!
Do most men’s hair turn blonder as well?
The yellow hair is just tacky.
Pit or no pit, the simple fact is that many men today no longer dress appropriately and have lost all sense of decorum and modesty. His shirt is ok to go to the beach but not ok for a concert or opera. Dress you age. I remember seeing Ozawa when he was young, wearing a turtle neck shirt and cowboy boots – it was cool then, but as he aged he dressed more age appropriate.
Opera is supposed to be Gesamtkunstwerk–time that the orchestra gets to participate from the pit!
Hardly as bad as the Mandarin Collar Suits that make conductors look like a James Bond villain.
Have you been to a NY Phil concert recently? Since they opened the renovated concert hall, the men are dressing as if they are unemployable hitmen. I saw that the LA Phil is also dressing that way and I suppose this is an indication of creeping west coast ‘slumming.’ But in fairness to the NY Phil, I was once in the audience where I spotted other patrons dressed in matching his and hers tracksuits. So I suppose the orchestra’s musicians decided ‘What’s good for the goose is good for the gander?’
I assume you mean the men are in suits with black dress shirts with no ties?
I can’t speak for all U.S. orchestra, but that’s pretty common. Tails are only worn on special events.
And I imagine the musicians are quite happy about this.
As Austin Powers would say: “Ouch Baby very Ouch”
You just zinged everyone out there including Eschenbach, Nope van Sweden, Zinman, and the rest of the over 50 crew.
That was the intent.
Rattle looks like the biggest buffoon of them all.
Personally, I like the South American Generalissimo look.
“In a slow news day, here’s late breaking new on YNS’s attire in the pit . . . details at 11” . . . . I’ll be sure to avoid The Met, due to what the conductor is wearing (not).
No, I’ll avoid The Met because tickets are expensive, the acoustics are generally lousy, and their huge stage seems a mile away if you don’t get seats up close. That’s not to mention that’s it’s difficult to put together a consistently good cast, and they replay the same war horses over and over (for the most part).
Better you stay home. I’m told crossword puzzles are a pleasant diversion.
girl i’d literally take a bullet for yannick. he’s a superb conductor and musician, and he looks great as always.
love and light!
xox
I always enjoy the curtain calls at Pacific Opera Victoria to see what kind of shoes the otherwise properly dressed conductor (and Artistic Director) Timothy Vernon is wearing!
Norman at it again with the hard hitting journalism…
It looks like a Hawaiian shirt he is wearing, not pajamas.
But who cares, especially if it makes him happy.
That pic was obviously taken during a rehearsal. Why is this even an issue?
My question after reading the nyt article showing the met costume dept making his ” outfits” is who is paying for this?
Eugene Ormandy would have rocked that yellow shirt.
This guy is insecure and a pathetic clown!