Saturday, October 01, 2011
Stand Down, Placido.
Anne Midgette is right that you're a mediocre conductor at best. The only reason you get hired to conduct is that you're the World's Greatest Living Tenor. And forget about "defamatory:" nobody reading what she wrote would think that you deliberately undermined the Tosca performance she attended.
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6 comments:
In essence I agree, but having thought about it, Anne's choice of the word "sabotage" does imply a certain intent, which no one would think is actually plausible. She could have chosen her words a bit more wisely. Still, Placido does seem to have gone one step beyond in his response. But skin becomes thinner with age, not thicker.
A more detailed account of his gripes against her would certainly be amusing reading.
I think "sabotage" is fine; it's perfectly clear from context what she meant.
I have some sympathy for the "poor choice of words" argument--seems like the kind of tone thing an editor should catch. But whatever. It's in print now, and there are zero people who came away from that review thinking anything more sinister than "Domingo is still a crappy conductor". Those nuances would be lost in any minor apology she could make--the story would just play as "intemperate critic who is excessively mean". And that's a very bad place for a critic to be.
Of course, all this ugliness could be avoided if Domingo would just put down the frickin' baton. Maybe we need a petition.
That's one petition I would sign.
She said "sabotage," he said "defamatory" . . . sounds like they're now even.
Now, boys and girls, kiss and make up and lets get on with our lives.
Of course he didn't *deliberately* ruin the performance. That would require competence, knowing the right way to conduct.
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