The Customer is always………

It has been an interesting few weeks closing out the ESO’s 08-09 season. Like most orchestras we get a fair amount of feedback about the concerts we present, but unlike many orchestras every email that we receive gets distributed throughout the staff, and posted by the musician’s lounge. This leads to some interesting reading.

Because we are in the Arts every one of us has run into that situation where we are confronted by the person who, if they were a football geek, would be called the Monday Morning Quarterback.  This person is almost worse than the Convince-sualist – those musicians who believe that if we just play All Masterworks All the Time that we will Convince The World of the Genius that is Classical Music, Clearly a Superior Art Form to All Others.  We need a new name for these members of our audiences who know our business better than we do – I am going to suggest “Sunday Morning Concertmaster.”

Of course the problem with our business is that we rely so heavily on our customer, our audience, to help us survive.  If you are running a pro football team you can afford a couple of years of lousy attendance and a losing record. Just look at the Detroit Lions.   There are going to be enough people willing to get drunk and watch 350 lbs people run around like madmen that you won’t lose too much money, and there’s going to be a large amount of TV earnings coming your way no matter how bad your team is.  In our business we have no TV earnings, no recordings (it’s a loss-leader anyway), no 350 lbs people running around making a spectacle of themselves, and the whole drinking issue is usually a tad more discreet (we all know there are exceptions).  So it pays to pay attention to those incoming emails.

Occasionally there are good ideas.  Someone recently suggested that we get out of the Nutcracker-Messiah rut and balance them by performing The Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to the Apostle Matthew during the Lenten season.  I’m all over this idea and artistically it makes tremendous sense.  Fiscally I’m not so sure – this calls for double chorus, five soloists, and a lot of patience, but I’m going to try my best to make it happen. Occasionally there are bad ideas – extended festivals featuring the music of obscure Central European composers, no matter how well intentioned, aren’t really going to balance either the fiscal or artistic budget.

Then there are the emails that intrude on whatever reality we have chosen to live in.  What do the Doom&Gloomers (every orchestra has them, don’t try and say otherwise!) do when emails come pouring in saying how much people really loved a particular concert?  Sure it might have been the 317th time you’ve played Beethoven V but, news flash, your audience loved it and they’re the ones who are paying your salary.  Maybe this gig isn’t so bad after all, eh?  Production needs to read these emails too – no matter how famous the guest artist/s is/are if the band drowns out the orchestra people are going to complain.  They want to hear so-and-so WITH the orchestra, not against it.

Of course there’s the occasional email that you just can’t respond to.  I recently ran across a rather infamous letter sent to the Minnesota Orchestra back when I was on their staff during the mid-90’s and…… my my my ……… I just happen to have it in front of me.  This true Minnesotan couple  was shocked, SHOCKED!!! by our performance of scenes from Der Rosenkavalier.  Since I have the source I shall quote directly:

“How greatly disappointed we were to sit down and suddenly be forced to listen to a woman tell with some delight the fact that we were about to be forced to listen to a musical score on ADULTERY (their emphasis), as if we didn’t have enough of marriage infidelity in our day and age as it were.

Then to add insult to injury, the singer for OCTAVIAN’s part was done by a woman.  Now tell me, in a day and age when there is so much lesbian and gay activity being promoted, just how could anyone really enjoy this set up, unless one is really morally sick already.

Our sympathy that there isn’t enough good music in this world that one has to promote immorality in order to have a concert (sic).  We have enough immorality on the TV and on the radio and now, thatns to you, in Orchestra Hall as well. One more notch down the drain.”

What do you do with something like that?  That is surprisingly common.  The ESO recently did a Pops show featuring the cast from Forbidden Broadway.  Many emails mentioned how hard people laughed during the concerts but one couple insisted it was the worse artistic experience of their lives.  They seemed most offended by a segment near the beginning of the show which goes:

“go smoke some crack,  ’cause guess who’s coming back….

oh la la la …….. Les Miserables“

I must admit that every time I hear that line I cracked up, but who am I?  They went on to say:

“We do realize that some people love that type of thing but surely one can go to the symphony without being exposed to innuendos and immoral talk.”

Emails like this make me nervous as all hell because I wonder if I’ve just missed something.  Then just a couple of days later I was at a dinner with some major donors and one of them went out of his way to mention how much he enjoyed the Forbidden Broadway show.  I guess it’s true – you can’t please all the people all the time.

Yes, we are beholden to our audience.  We are here to entertain them and provide them with a joyous experience.  But every once and a while we need to gird ourselves and just charge ahead, knowing that we’re going to take some flak from people who just don’t get it.  That is the price we all pay for trying to be involved with a dynamic art form.  Otherwise we can just go back to playing Beethoven V every week.  That’s safe.  And I wonder what those Sunday Morning Concertmasters have to say about their local Opera company.  Opera without innuendo and immoral talk is … is …………… the classical music equivalent of smooth jazz.  Yikes