What The Hell Were They Thinking?

It’s Bastille Day.  We have our General Dress rehearsal tonight for Porgy.  Tomorrow I travel to Valence to see the 11th stage of the Tour de France.  With all that going on why, you may ask, is my mind a thousand miles away?

The internet is a wonderful thing.  You can keep abreast of all sorts of news, and that information can cause one to reflect on one’s own situation.  This happened to me last night on the way back to my flat after the Pre-Gale, the pre general dress rehearsal.  I was exhausted, desperately ready for a beer, and it popped into my mind: what the hell was the Boston Symphony Orchestra thinking when they hired James Levine?

Since I’ve put that out there, let me back up for a minute.  I’m not for one milli-second suggesting they made a bad musical choice.  Levine is probably the premiere opera conductor alive today, certainly the #1 in the Western hemisphere.  He has consistently shown that he is as adept in the orchestral repertoire, and he is a good few levels above being a decent pianist.  I would consider sitting down with Levine to argue various aspects of music an afternoon very, very, very well spent.  But here comes the caveat, and I have to start it by giving an honest assessment of myself:

I’m 45 years old.  Despite spending most of my adult life figuring out different ways of extending a party atmosphere I’m still in pretty good shape.  This year I was up to playing the piano 5 hours a day on Goyescas of Enrique Granados, one of the most demanding pieces in the repertoire.  When I’m home I regularly help coach my kids baseball teams, which involves a lot of running around, throwing a baseball, and standing in the heat and humidity of a Minnesota summer.  Put me on my bicycle and I’ll knock off 35 miles in 2 hours and consider it a decent, moderate ride.  Those bike duffers of you out there, I would have to downshift rather dramatically just to not end up miles ahead of you in a very short amount of time.  In short, compared to the hopefully apocryphal typical American middle-aged man who sits around channel surfing, eats regularly at the Old Country Buffet, and spends most of their work day behind a desk, I’m in pretty good shape.  No tri-athelete, but I’m still ahead of the curve.

Yet at the end of Porgy & Bess, which clocks in at a little over 3 hours, I was knackered.  First of all, it’s three hours on my feet in one place.  I’m in the pit, literally 7 feet above the orchestra on a podium, this to ensure that the singers on stage can see me, and the podium is about the size of your average postage stamp.  No jumping around.  There is also three hours of waving my arms.  Doesn’t sound like a lot of work to you?  You try it.  There’s a reason that conductors tend to live a long time (besides that whole pact with the Devil thing) – moving your arms dramatically for hours is one hellacious cardio-vascular work out.  Then there’s the concentration level.  I’ve got close to 200 people relying on my every move and there is no chance whatsoever to take a mental break.  It all has to be automatic and it all has to be exactly the same as it was yesterday.  Except, of course, when the singers take a flier and suddenly you have to adjust the entire orchestra, all without screaming out loud “WTF ARE YOU DOING?!??!??!??!”

Which brings me back to Levine.  Opera conducting is THE hardest thing to do in this business.  To do it you put in extremely long hours rehearsing singers, choruses, orchestras, arguing with stage directors, and generally disregarding the concept of “having a life.”  It is mentally and physically exhausting, and it’s that last point that has me worried.  The condition of the Music Director of the MET is no secret.  Indeed, when the poor guy has a hangnail it’s front page news in the New York Times.  Anyone who has followed the biz knows that Levine has had some health issues over the years, and frankly I’d be more surprised if he hadn’t had any.  The hours are brutal.  I once asked an acquaintance of mine in the MET orchestra what his longest day was.  He replied “one day we had a 6 hour rehearsal of Falstaff, and that evening a performance of Götterdämmerung.  It took me 3 days to recover.”  Yikes.

But the BSO is one of the premiere orchestras in the world, with their regular season, the Boston Pops, and Tanglewood to look after, not to mention recording (if there is any), touring (if there is any), auditions (ibid), and the various administrative and PR stuff that goes on.  Being Music Director of the BSO is the very definition of a full time job.  Actually, being Music Director of the BSO is much more than a full time job.  I’m Music Director of an orchestra with about 1/10 the budget of the BSO and on a daily basis I consider putting a loaded gun to my head (and, truth be told, to the heads of other people, but that’s the joy of being in this crazy business.  It’s the behind the scenes stuff that is truly insane and it’s the same at every orchestra.  If we didn’t love making music we’d all kill each other).

Where do we stand?  The BSO has one of the great living musicians as their Music Director, but no matter how loudly anyone protests is there anyone out there who believes that the BSO is actually his primary job?  No.  He is, first and foremost, Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera House.  As great of a musician as he is I don’t see how he can do both of those jobs at the same time.  I don’t see how ANYBODY could do both at the same time.  And Levine is, as of last month, 67 years old.  If I completely recycled all the repertoire I know, and stuck with operas I’m intimately familiar with, I might, just might, be able to pull off getting through one season of that kind of schedule without having a completely mental, emotional, and physical breakdown.  And I’m 22 years younger than he is. Because of that schedule, and Levine’s health, the BSO comes off as seeming rudderless.  Levine and the BSO now have a huge dilemma on their hands and I certainly have no sage advice.  I would hate to be in their position.

I’m now going on a long, long bike ride.