The Théâtre des Champs Élysées has replaced François Xavier Roth as conductor of tonight’s concert.
Adrien Perruchon is stepping in.
Roth was accused today in a French magazine of inappropriate sexual messaging.
The Finnish music world is in mourning for…
Singers’ agents tell us of a tsunami of…
Colleagues are mourning the sudden death of the…
The city of Würzburg has been shaken by…
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Not another one. Jeez, guys!
I was at the concert yesterday without knowing nothing about the Canard’s story. I was surprised to don’t see Roth on stage. There was no messages before the concert on stage it was in the lobby the informations but I didn’t take notice early. Perruchon conducted very well and the Heure espagnole after was very pleasant for the singers and the orchestra. It’s only after the concert that I read the article… Now I understand why Roth was not hired by the Opera de Paris, the Orchestre e Paris and the RCO. For the three he had some good chances normally.
Here we go again. Yes, it’s unwise to post unpleasant messages on the (anti-)social media, which are cesspits of ordure with the occasional sparking diamond or two floating by. But it seems that anyone who posts anything short of unmitigated sycophancy will offend someone somewhere, who will get the author cancelled, sacked and possibly imprisoned.
The type on the newspaper page illustrated above is too small to read, and my French does not go far beyond O-level, so to be fair I don’t know how egregious these messages are, and yes, Roth may be a total idiot for compromising a stellar career, but what I would like to know is whether they were part of an odious exchange, and did the offendee post equally offensive messages to Roth before he retaliated? Or did he just use a wrong pronoun? Could someone enlighten us?
I have never ever participated in any of these social media for that very reason. I am old enough to consider a friend as a human whom I have met or spoken to, not some unknown entity in cyberspace whose name I have clicked on just on the basis of a common interest in Professional Tiddlywinks or drinking real ale. SD is the closest I have got to social media but it’s wholly benign (except for the odd spat here and there, soon forgotten) and exceptionally informative, given the erudition of those who post on it. NL keeps a very orderly house!
Yes, Social Media has a lot to answer for. I too consider a friend to be a human being I have met not someone picked up. Even then you can know lots of real people but on friendship, if you count five true friends on one hand, then you are very lucky in life – not 1,000 on social media who mainly don’t give a toss about you!!
So many people from the business knew what kind of freak he is.
Thats not the first time.
We should and can’t tolerate what he has done. There is coming more!
His new orchestra SWR can’t go on with him as a music director.
Otherwise we need to stand up against it.
Sorry to hear this. Whappa titty as he is such a fine artits.
Another cancellation. Will he end up in Russia? On my local NPR station they don’t even mention Charles Dutoit’s name when they play a Montreal Symphony recording.
The sexual messages were inappropriate because they were sent to musicians of orchestras he was conducting. Everybody is free to send sexual messages – this is obviously not a crime (albeit a sign of questionable taste). The problem here is abusing a position of power that a conductor somehow still has over musicians, aggravated by the fact that he is, or was, that orchestra’s music director, as it seems to have been the case here and with other orchestras. Similar problems existed with Gatti, Harding, Dutoit, Domingo, etc. It is not about having or wishing for sexual contact or romantic relationships with colleagues – this is in the nature of working together. It would be about the abuse of power, especially if those messages weren’t wished for.
Daniel Harding??? The others you mention have all certainly been involved in various situations of their own making and this has been widely reported here and elsewhere, but to my knowledge Daniel Harding has never been publicly accused of a professional abuse of of power.
Ask Orchestre de Paris.
I have friends in L’Orchestre de Paris…they have never once mentioned him abusing his power.
Absolutely correct.
He probably withdrew.
This is his own orchestra, Les Siècles.
His apology, contained in Le Canard’s story, strikes me as fair.
This is idiocy, not perversion, and it may be considered human.
Hopefully nobody has been harmed.
Hopefully the behavior has come to an end.
We heard Les Siècles in two programs at Schwetzingen this month — brilliant pairings of Ligeti and Mozart, and astonishing discipline from the French orchestra.
FXR’s Lohengrin in Munich 18 months ago was (musically) a revelation.
Music needs FXR. Let him not be destroyed by this.
Sending unsollicited pictures of your parts to anyone is not human, it’s perversion alright as well as idiocy. Yes he is a brilliant conductor, but if this takes him down he will have only himself to blame. What a waste.
When you say ‘parts’, do you mean the orchestra parts on the music stands?
Come on, he’s one of the few conductors who are good musicians, are intelligent and can actually conduct. so let’s let this madness pass .
But he’s not female, so what’s the point of watching him conduct?
Really people still say but he’s a good conductor or this is some woke thing? No.
I don’t care how skilled you are, behavior like this is unacceptable. ESPECIALLY because there are hundreds of qualified and skilled people in the music industry who WILL behave professionally, respectfully and above the low bar of just not being gross.
What has being apologetic of a sexual predator to do with wokeness? The amount of anti-woke obsession amongst some SD readers never ceases to astonish.
The way the Canard enchaîné decribed this horrible behaviour is almost as if it was a joke!
I should have been more diligent in French class, but what I piece together is that he has been extremely naughty online and has earned censure. But we as a society have been complicit in enabling and encouraging an online world where anything goes and people do things they themselves would never have imagined a generation ago. Pandora’s box has been opened again, and this time, I fear, unaccompanied by hope.
It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last! Why can’t it just be about the music?
Human frailty!
Shocking news that will upend the entire classical music world. I am trying in vain to process this news.
As it stands on the commercial recordings he’s made, I think many of you were fooled by ‘the emperor’s new clothes’ when evaluating Roth’s work as a conductor. I think vocalists and instrumentalists are far easier to judge. When it comes to conductors, many people are not equipped to form a dependable evaluation from a small sample size . For some reason, I’m not surprised by this turn of events.