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Doublereed Archive - Posting 000070.txt from 2004/02
From: "TC" <cui74@-----.com>
Subj: [DR-L] Conductors behaving badly
Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 12:24:23 -0500
Conductor Daniele Gatti, Leaving on a Sour Note
By Tim Page
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, February 14, 2004; Page C01
Conductor Daniele Gatti, who will be leading the Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra on Monday night at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, left a trail
of enraged promoters and concertgoers in Naples, Fla., after a concert there
Wednesday night.
According to Myra Daniels, the CEO of the Naples Philharmonic Center for the
Arts, Gatti had just completed a program that included Beethoven's Symphony
No. 3 ("Eroica") and the Saint-Saens Cello Concerto. "It was a -- oh, let's
say a pretty good concert," she said yesterday, "but our audience is very
polite and stood and applauded. And then Gatti came out on the stage and
stopped the applause. We thought he was going to do an encore. Well, he did,
but it was his encore."
Gatti, 42, began by apologizing for the quality of the performance,
explaining that the orchestra had been on tour for two weeks. Then, in
heated, broken English, he berated everybody there -- the presenters, the
orchestra and the audience -- for a full two to three minutes.
"It was very difficult to understand him, but we got the basic point," a
concertgoer, Nicolas Hemes, said yesterday. "He was furious, like some
angry, dictatorial professor, beating the class up because it failed its
exams. He made everyone nervous, so people started to laugh -- and he
shushed us! It was like -- 'Quiet! I'm speaking! The maestro is speaking!' "
What set Gatti off? "I'm still wondering," Daniels said. "I wish we'd made a
tape recording that we could try to decipher. He seemed to be angry because
we seated some patrons after a movement. He seemed to be upset with our
acoustics. Well, I'm sorry, but we've had orchestras from Cleveland,
Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis and many other cities here, and they've
found nothing wrong with our acoustics."
Peg Goldberg Longstreth, in her review of the concert for the Naples Daily
News, called Gatti an "incredibly rude, ill-mannered, churlish, boorish
young conductor" who "tripped over his enormous ego and, in the process,
managed to insult and alienate an entire, enthusiastic, respectful audience
who had paid nearly $100 a ticket for the evening.
"I have seen many gaffes and disasters onstage or during performances in my
lifetime," Goldberg Longstreth continued. "I have seen children wet
themselves during their student recital; a graduate student in voice (whom I
was accompanying) suddenly vomit all over everything during her doctoral
recital; an organ short out and go totally silent during the procession of
an ultra-socialite's wedding. I have seen parts break or fall off
instruments. Reeds split. Strings break. Professionals forget their parts
and flee the stage. I have seen musicians topple off stage; chairs break;
batons suddenly take leave and fly through the air.
"But until Wednesday, I have never seen a highly touted, internationally
much heralded conductor blow his stack, come back on stage following a
standing ovation and berate the audience." She concluded by calling Gatti a
"pretentious, angry little twit."
This was Gatti's third visit to Naples with the Royal Philharmonic. "He's
been fine whenever he's been here before," Daniels said. "Of course, if you
pay $90,000 to bring an orchestra to your city, you expect polite behavior."
Until Wednesday, Gatti had been invited back for the 2005-06 season. "We
will not honor that contract," Daniels said. "You should see the messages
I'm getting from our audience. This one says, 'I'm 80 years old and I've
been attending classical music concerts all over the world for most of my
life and I've never been so insulted.' Here's one that just says he is an
SOB. I like this one -- 'Let's have a "Goodbye Gatti" concert and drive him
to the airport.' "
Gatti has been music director of the Royal Philharmonic since 1996; he has
also conducted the leading orchestras of Vienna, Cleveland, Boston, Chicago
and New York. He began his career as an opera conductor and has led
performances at La Scala in Milan, Covent Garden in London and at the
Metropolitan Opera in New York. His management, Columbia Artists, said that
nobody had been able to reach Gatti since the Naples concert and that nobody
would be speaking to him until after a concert in New York tomorrow.
From a purely artistic point of view, the concert was generally deemed a
success. "We like the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra very much," Daniels said.
"They opened our hall 16 years ago, and I'm sure we'll have them back again,
with a different conductor."
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra will play music by Brahms and Tchaikovsky
at 8 p.m. Monday at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Remaining tickets are
$45 to $85. Call 202-467-4600 or visit www.wpas.org.
