Yannick gets a 60 Minutes puff
NewsHe’s on tonight.
Trailer:
Will he ever face critical examination?
Comments
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60 Minutes used to do hard-hitting pieces on classical musicians. Go back and watch the ones Mike Wallace did with Pavarotti and Horowitz. He pressed them like he would a corrupt CEO or politician. Those days are long past.
Callas too.
It’s just not the same show. The puff piece on Levine around 2014 was especially sick-making. Of course, it aged like milk, but it was bad even at the time.
“Critical” also means “exercising judicious evaluation”, as in “critical editions” of a score.
So yes, Yannick gets a “critical examination” every time the NYT reviews him. You may want to disagree with the NYT, you may want to see negative reviews, but the NYT critics offer arguments and evidence for their reviews, and you’d have to offer up yours against theirs, in other words, exercise judicious evaluation.
60 Minutes has never played a “critical” role (in any sense of the word) in classical music, I’m not sure what “hard hitting” could mean in this context.
What, an undercover investigation into the personal life and finances of Yannick? Is he hiding classified documents in his garage? Did he pay off a porn star? What?
If you’re looking for political and social ties to murderous dictators, you’re barking up the wrong tree with Yannick.
Musicians in the orchestra are increasingly losing their patience with this vanity circus (as you can glimpse in this video briefly when he shows up in boxing gloves). They were happy to play along at the beginning of his tenure, but his lack of growth as an opera conductor, ignorance to musical standards (his Traviata and Boheme were the worst in the last 10 years), and constant pandering are not positive signs for the future. The worst music director in the institution’s history.
Who thought the next music director would have us pining for James Levine?
Agree that the boxing gloves and robe looked foolish but these days one has to be grateful for any coverage of classical music in the “mainstream” media. Yes, I’m old enough to remember when there was a fair amount of media coverage of classical music. Of course those days are long gone.
The next video will be Yannick running up the steps of the Philly Art Museum and getting a photo op with the statue of Rocky Balboa.
God help us one and all.
Thank is actually what happened on the 60 minutest last night – Yannick did run up the steps. Really I am not kidding.
That’s exactly what the 60 Minutes profile showed!
Some people will look foolish even in the Turkish bath.
Speak for yourself. Many of us are not pining for depraved abusers.
Just as it is possible for most people to “chew gum and walk at the same time,” it is also possible to deplore Levine’s private aggressions while simultaneously finding much to admire in his conducting.
No, it isn’t. If the conductor is a despicable human being, and on top of it, a hypocrite who likes to be pined as a “great man” by corrupt accomplices in power cycles and the press, while living double, triple, quadruple (keep multiplying) lives … most decent listeners – let us say, the average decent listener – will find it impossible to separate the conducting from the repellent essence of the man.
If decency is lacking … both in both the conductor and in the listener, well that is a different story.
In the politics arena, the same lack of decency explains Trump’s grip on 40%+ of the US population. Trump famously said: “I could … shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters”. That is actually a very accurate statement, and could be translated into classical music and applied to the hard core fans of a certain conductor I know (though they represent way less than 40% of classical music audience, as demonstrated by the same conductor’s record sales, or lack thereof).
I said, above, that it was possible to deplore Levine’s personal aggressions while simultaneously finding much to admire in his conducting.
Your supposed rebuttal focuses exclusively on personality and bureaucratic issues but says nothing about his music-making. (I believe the first paragraph of your response could just as well have been lifted verbatim from things you have written about Muti. But Levine is not Muti, and neither of them is Nezet-Seguin, and all musical roads on this discussion forum do not, and should not, lead to Chicago.)
The comparison to Trump is inapt because, unlike Levine (who in certain ways had an unadmirable personal life but was, although not at all times and in all repertoire, a very fine conductor) Trump was, and is, BOTH repellent as a human being AND a catastrophe in any position of public policy leadership.
Feel the hate!!
“have us pining for James Levine”
That says all it needs to be said about you.
(By the way, there have only been 3 music directors at the Met, so “The worst music director in the institution’s history” still places him at 3rd, which is still a bronze medal.)
“his Traviata and Boheme were the worst in the last 10 years”. Not according to the reviews I read. And I went to them both myself and don’t agree. At all.
If you’re pining for a pedophile, I think you might be the problem
Which “problem” would that be – the problem of world-class music-making?
Well, Yannick has nothing to worry about. He is supremely popular with all the great European orchestras including the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. And of course his tenure with the Philadelphia Orchestra is also a big success.
A Big Success? Says who?
Philly is now a secondary market in the shadow of NYC.
Ormandy? Stokowski? The Philadelphia Sound (is there one these days?)
A new model of operating in the orchestral world is sorely needed and it’s with how things are being done in Buffalo and Kansas City.
These Jet Setters who crave their daily allotment of selfies (a minimum of 10 per day as their managers request) is the threshold.
Our US orchestra industry desperately needs music directors who are part of the heart and sole of the city they operate in and not chasing after second and third positions in orchestras that are in different continents.
If they’re musical and nice to work for, that’s just icing on the cake.
oh, how very true. While I can’t imagine Matthias Pintscher in Kansas City, it is certainly a bold move and he is an impeccable musician.
It’s Mothers Day in the US. Normally 60 Minutes puts on puff pieces on these sorts of holidays…or when opposite a big sports event.
Doesn’t get much puffier.
What narcissism! Last week he mutilated Bruckner’s 9th symphony , tacking onto the transcendent third movement Adagio, without even a break ,Bruckner’s noisy major key Te Deum as if it were the symphony’s finale. The man has no taste. Thank God he has stopped his pointless rambling pre-concert spoken intros.
You’re an ignorant person. I attended that splendid concert in Philadelphia, and it was Bruckner himself who suggested the Te Deum as a finale to the symphony.
Exactly. And other conductors have done the same.
Actually, if I understand correctly, it was presented that way at the symphony’s first performance, seven years after Bruckner’s death, allegedly on the composer’s own recommendation (after a suggestion by Hans Richter). In fact, it says so right in Christopher H. Gibbs’ program notes, which I guess you didn’t read, if you even attended the performance, which was sublime. Not a Bruckner 9 for every day, perhaps (I still prefer my 9th in three movements), but a stunning concert — even with the now-notorious cell phone disruptions.
You have a point, an idiotic point. The first three movements of the Ninth were premiered in Vienna, in the Wiener Musikvereinssaal on 11 February 1903 by the Wiener Concertvereinsorchester, the precursor of the Wiener Symphoniker (Vienna Symphony), under the conductor Ferdinand Löwe in his own arrangement. Löwe profoundly changed Bruckner’s original score by adapting Bruckner’s orchestration in the sense of a rapprochement with Wagner’s ideal of sound, and made changes to Bruckner’s harmony in certain passages (most notably in the climax of the Adagio). The Te Deum was not tacked on . You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
I agree with the implicit thesis: conductors should face critical examination. Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin should not be immune from it.
Facing critical examination is not pretty.
For example (and I pick the first one that comes to mind, randomly, for the sake of argument): this week, the Italian Stallion has been facing critical examination on the Chicago Classical Review, the only authoritative source of classical music criticism in Chicago. Here are some excerpts:
“There have been some superb events at Orchestra Hall in recent months marking Rachmaninoff’s 150th anniversary year, including Evgeny Kissin in the Russian composer’s solo piano works and, especially, Daniil Trifonov’s blockbuster account of the Third Piano Concerto. Thursday’s performance of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 wasn’t one of them.”
” […] oddly […], Muti never quite seemed at home in the rich and surging Romanticism that is at the core of Rachmaninoff’s art.”
“Muti’s tempo, while just fractionally slower than the Allegro moderato marked, repeatedly sacrificed momentum and […] dramatic tension”
“Further, the conductor kept a tight rein on Rachmaninoff’s melodic riches, tamping down the soaring middle theme of the second movement and especially the warm-hearted lyricism of the Adagio.”
“In a rendition that passed the hour mark, by the time the performance reached the jubilant coda, one felt more a sense of relief than exhilaration.”
We can all agree that this kind of examination (especially when honest and competent, like in example given) hurts, but is necessary. It is often correlated with deeply decreasing audiences year over year, and – presumably – loss of commercial success is the deserved outcome (which is precisely what is happening in Chicago, and not in Philly).
But, after having established that critical examination is required, the more pressing question is, what should then be the object of the criticism.
Painted nails and boxing gloves? Colorful clothes that clash with the conservative mindset?
Or .. visits to refugee camps, desperately seeking for publicity for a moribund career, while sleeping in five star luxury hotels on the same day? (https://slippedisc.com/2023/05/muti-goes-bearing-gifts-to-syrians/). And doing such PR stunts, while being known to have made racists statements against people of Middle Eastern and/or Arabic descent?
“… I remember the first time I went to the Bellini (Theatre). It was 1966, and Catania was filled with the scent of orange blossoms; today you smell only kebab.” (Riccardo Muti)
https://slippedisc.com/2015/12/xmas-message-riccardo-muti-appeals-for-a-spiritual-revival-in-italy/
Not to mention that certain conductors (whom I shall not name) should face even more probing critical examinations by their HR departments and Boards for unethical behaviors which – in this day and age – get CEOs fired. But that’s a different issue, for a different post.
Let the readers decide!
I would never pay my hard earned money to hear Muti conduct Rachmaninoff.
I’m surprised that there were people who did.
Just try finding intelligent and musically literate criticism in the NY Times. Almost every review they write is simply a compendium of adjectives. Do a search for “ROUGH-HEWN”, you’ll find uncountable amounts.
Last time I met Bartoli I mentioned Barbara Walter did a 60 minutes to her and put her name on the US map, her eyes lightened up immediate. Ah, sweet youth!
Leonard Bernstein in the boxing ring. Or so he thinks.
The clip is from the boxing opera “Champion”, where is the obligatory naked shower scene à la Broadway?
And would Yannick come out wearing a jock strap?
Yannick has never just been a sixty-minute poof. He’s in it for the duration.
Yannick is gay and since the lavendar mafia controls the opera world, homosexuals are hardly ever accountable for anything! They certainly NEVER have to answer for poor musicianship. As I have said before, Gelb was terrified of his career being ruined if he replaced Levine with a straight man like Fabio Luisi, who was a far more experienced and qualified opera conductor. Even the reporters interviewing Yannick were probably afraid of their careers getting “whacked” if they said anything critical of a gay man.
Wow….I suggest you lay off the sauce or take your meds before posting such an uninformed rant, not to mention grossly offensive.
One may also wonder if all the animosity towards him is because he is gay. @ musicman.
Levine was gay and never got that kind of animosity because he was a better opera condoctor than Yannick. He also got a pass for most of his career on being an abuser.
Luisi is a second-rate interpreter at best – though given your Hitlerian homophobic rant, its obvious you are not a person with either trustworthy judgements or human ethics.
Luisi is a much better opera interpreter than Yannick and had already held music directorships and major opera houses. Read the Met orchestra member’s comments above about Yannick’s interpretations! I think they know better than both of us and they say he is awful! And my comments are not Hitlerian! I am not calling to kill anyone! I just want equal accountability!
No, you are not calling for killing, but your offensive comments (“lavendar mafia”) may–in this or other contexts–inflame the homophobia or racism in those who are not quite balanced.
Damn I didn’t know lavender was back in us as a euphemism. I honestly thought if had gone out of use in the ‘60s.
YNS is helping classical music and opera get mass media attention that is telling the world that the music is for everyone, not just elites.
What’s the problem?
And as for claims that musicians are growing tired of his flamboyance, says who? By all accounts, it’s a love fest with the Philly and Met musicians.
It just really pisses people off on this message board that a conductor who paints his finger nails is popular.
And have you pearl clutchers ever thought for a moment that what YNS chooses to wear is a deliberate attempt to signal to people who’ve never attended a concert that you don’t have to own a suit and tie to attend? To this day, when I invite someone to a concert who has never attended before, they always ask if they have to wear a suit or even a tux.
Definitely not a love fest in either orchestra. Who do you talk to? Both groups have feel he is more into himself than the music. His number one job is to lead the orchestra, but he has forgotten that.
Amen brother!
Copium overdose in the comments as usual. Stay mad boomers
If you evaluate your classical music experience based upon TV news magazines and blog comments, you’ll enjoy this mindless post and thread. If you, instead, listen intelligently to the actual performances and recordings, or even play with the man, you’ve likely already skipped my comment.
I haven’t heard enough concerts or performances with YNS to make a musical opinion one way or the other. But I will make this one: the man truly seems to enjoy what he is doing. Having a conductor radiate that joy with his face, and to communicate it to the orchestra is life-affirming and makes both playing and listening more pleasurable. So many conductors are so serious and dour looking and you can see it reflected in the faces of the orchestra members. It’s one of the things that made Bernstein so popular and famous: he loved what he was doing and it showed. Maybe I’ll run up to Vail, CO and catch YNS with the Philly and judge for myself this summer.
The musicians I know in the orchestra are totally sick of his antics and his butchering of staples like Boheme and Don Carlo. Yes they do consider his ridiculous nails a distraction. Never mind the outfits, the preening and attention seeking. This musician was totally depressed that he’ll be signed until 2030. Just keep thinking about that pension!
Yes Couperin, yes
Music directors don’t get pensions. They are hired as outside contractors through their corporations.
Uh, I think Coup was referring to the pension S/HE will get, not YNS.
Didn’t he just shame an audience member for not remembering to silence their cell phone, like two days ago?
Not sure that’s really helping his cause….
60 minutes ceased being relevant decades ago.
In fact, many (if not most) musicians of the Met orchestra have a very low opinion of Yannick’s talents.
And the singers positively hate his inability to find a proper balance and provide credible accompaniment (rather than drown them out).
James Levine (whatever his personal failings might have been) was ten times the musician this clownish gnome is or will ever be.
What is there to criticize? Especially considering the human horror show that was his predecessor! Is there any reason for this Yannick-bashing obsession other than hating anything Met-related? (And some barely concealed homophobia among the reader comments).
What was wrong with his predecessor? Did I not get the memo?
And prove it.
@Kenny – didn’t you get the memo ? Due process and the presumption of innocence don’t matter anymore. The comrade had been denounced, therefore off to Gulag with him (eye roll)
Their homophobia is not that concealed.
YNS is a good musician who has made the perfect rendez-vous with the Zeitgeist. The listeners who want more than a “good musician” in a role like his, and who can tell what that might mean, are few and mostly elderly. Yes, orchestra players and singers know a little more, but they grin and bear it. Believe me, if he were actually incompetent, he wouldn’t be where he is. But lightweight competence, combined with positive energy and a flair for drawing attention, are sufficient to the task at it is conceived by the people making the decisions.
The man himself, however, senses the contradictions at some level. He wants to make classical music more palatable to the average consumer, who’s put off by the idea of high art and focused, devoted concentration on things that reveal themselves gradually through study and immersion. So why get all agitated about a little cell-phone interruption? Shouldn’t the Bruckner fans just lighten up a little? 99.9% of the symphony was un-interrupted!
Yannick was having an experience that could be harmed by the intrusion. But the audience he’s addressing with his PR choices may not understand or want that experience. He should think it through.
Google Mike Wallace 60 minutes piece with Slava Rostropovich after his return to Russia after 16 years in exile in 1990. This was not a puff segment at all. Hard hitting questions and honest, deep felt answers. A treasure!