Honey and Vinegar

I am currently in rehearsals, along with the rest of the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale, for "Acis and Galatea"--Mozart's orchestration of the Handel opera. I find it insufferably twee and a bit of a snooze, but as that is how I feel about much of Handel's repertoire, I shall refrain from extemporizing further about the piece itself. The rehearsals, on the other hand, are somewhat interesting, if as more of an observational exercise than as music-making. The observation, in this case, refers to the personality of a famous choreographer whose dance company is involved in this production as well. We in the chorus have managed, so far, to avoid major mishaps because we had been warned by those who have worked with this man before: Don't get in his way, don't make unnecessary noise, and, for GOD's sake, don't EVER let your cell phone go off during reherasal, lest you release the screaming banshee upon us all (for, apparently, he does not discriminate when he releases his fury dogs). Even though we were not its target, we got to see quite a bit of rage-barking in action last night--to his dancers and the principals, he was alternately rude, condescending, snarky, and derisive, to the point of being abusive (for the first time, perhaps, in my life, I was grateful for my limited exposure to abusive conductors!). He could also be constructive in his criticism--often in equal measure--but one would have to have a very thick skin to tolerate a steady diet of that withering tone and blistering sarcasm. (An example: one of his more interesting bon mots was while giving notes after the first half of the evening's rehearsal, when he had been particularly difficult--"Those of you onstage who are sulking, please find someone to make you sulk less. If that means a hand job, then so be it." Another one, from a few years ago, to the dancers portraying the witches in "Dido and Aeneas": "Could you be more cunt-y?" And these were two of the nicer comments.) Yet, if I were to talk to his dancers, I would bet, dollars to doughnuts, I'd hear "Well, he's demanding, yes, but he's brilliant." Oh, so it's OK to be an asshole if it gets results? If we slap the "demanding" label on someone, we can justify the abuse? I suppose 'twas ever thus--genius is allowed to get away with the most horrific behavior. The usual subjects can be trotted out here--Wagner was an anti-Semite, Picasso slept with anything that moved (while refusing to divorce his wife as he felt she didn't deserve half his wealth), Gesualdo deserves a category all to himself as the High Prince of Bat-Shit Cray-Cray In Music. The problem for us, however, is laziness--falling into the old trope of assuming that ARTIST automatically equals CRAZY, and that they are allowed to step outside of the expectations of decent behavior because they have already chosen to exist outside of polite society. I can't help but be reminded, though, of my experience working with Stephen Sondheim back in 2001, when the San Francisco Symphony did a semi-staged performance of his "Sweeney Todd". Now, if there is anyone alive who has earned the title of "genius" and has earned the right to be a tyrant, you would think it would be Sondheim. But in my experience with him, exactly the opposite was true--he was soft-spoken, supportive, and truly respectful, even to the lowliest nameless chorister (me). I never once heard him say, either to one of us or to the stars of the show, "You did that wrong!"--instead, he would phrase it as, "I'd like to hear it THIS way." As a result, we all bent over backwards to give him whatever he wanted, and the production not only came together in less than three weeks, start to finish, but it was a fantastic success. Why don't more composers, choreographers, conductors, and other artistic leaders of all stripes, get this? Must we emulate the business model of the hardnosed heartless CEO--or the artistic model of the bat-shit crazy asshole genius--to make good art? Whatever happened to "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar"? Let's stop lying to ourselves. Artists are, essentially, children at heart--we NEED that openness, that vulnerability and willingness to see the world with a child's wondering eye, to make art. And we tell our children to watch what they say to each other, that words hurt. We would never tell a six-year-old in ballet class, "Could you be more cunt-y?" (And if you DO say that to six-year-olds in your ballet class, then you have more serious mental problems than a talking-to is going to fix.) We want to support our childrens' creative impulses, and we punish the older children who are mean and bullying to our children. Now, I'm not suggesting we mollycoddle ourselves--or our children--it's a hard world sometimes, and we all have our share of awful stuff to deal with. And there are times when the person in charge loses their patience when the chorus, or the dancers, or the players, JUST AREN'T GETTING IT. But is it necessary to be abusive to get people to do what you want? Sondheim didn't think so. Instead of making the people who worked for him feel less-than, he used positive instead of negative critiques, every time. And it worked. It's not just Mr. Sondheim, either--all of my best, most fulfilling artistic experiences have come from work environments that were supportive and collegial, where those in charge used respect, not fear, as the goad to create art. Why aren't we standing up to the bullies in our art? RM April 23, 2014