A Perlman before swine?

A Perlman before swine?

Posted on January 17th, 2009 by Christopher Guerin

Greetings. This is my first post on When Falls the Coliseum and I’m not quite sure what I will be writing about. Certainly, my 26 years in the symphony orchestra business will be a recurring theme, particularly when I come across articles or news on that subject. I hope also to weigh in on numerous other, mostly cultural, topics. At 55, I cast a cold, if not curmudgeonly eye on the current state of culture. Everything seems to be dying. Some of my favorite things, like Top 40 radio, died long ago. The death of the LP and now the CD (a poor substitute), and the virtual demise of the music industry, is a constant thorn. And, in the last year, we saw the deforestation of most culture reporting in print, including huge losses for reviewers of all kinds. And don’t get me started on computer graphics in the movies. I can’t blame the end of melody on the universal digitalization of creativity alone, but the fact remains that melody just doesn’t seem to interest anyone anymore. The world, at least the younger world, seems content to seek philosophy from 20-year old guitarists. Well, you grok my drift, as my wife is used to my saying.

Let’s begin.

I was reminded of the times I’ve worked with Itzhak Perlman when I came across this recent article.

On his never-ending tour of recitals, Perlman performed a work of Olivier Messiaen, a slightly angular, but hardly opaque contemporary composition. When the audience responded with tepid applause, he upbraided them for their philistinism (my word, not his, but implicit), and proceeded to perform the piece a second time, eliciting — whether by bullying or charm is unclear — a warmer response.

Having booked Perlman twice, the last time for $60,000 (and that was more than 10 years ago — the fee must be a ponderous sum by now), and watching him deliver listless and condescending performances to sold-out crowds, I recognize in this recent story the Perlman I knew well.

My first experience of Perlman was at a Chicago Symphony concert in 1978, a year before I got into the symphony business. I sat in the last row of the main floor of Orchestra Hall and managed, to my embarrassment, to fall asleep during the Beethoven Violin Concerto. (In fairness, I think it was the wine with dinner, not the performance — Perlman can’t afford to phone it in with the Big Five.) The applause woke me up and as the raucous cheers drew Perlman tottering on his crutches from the wings, again and again, I remember thinking, “Stop! Give the poor guy a break!” Then I realized he was enjoying every minute, and started to clap in earnest.

Now, to be sure, Itzhak Perlman is the last person in the world who either needs or wants pity for his infirmity. (In my own defense, for however momentarily exhibiting that emotion, I wore a leg brace myself for 4 years as a child, and while I didn’t seek pity, I understood why people felt it.)

I met Perlman several years later when he was booked to perform in recital by the Colorado Springs Symphony. As Operations Manager, I was obliged to see to his needs and to drive him around. The General Manager, Beatrice “Bee” Vradenburg, my boss, mentor, and lifelong friend, who ran that orchestra for 35 years, disappointed me by not letting me have the great artist to myself when picking him up at the airport. I was soon glad she was there. He was a handful.

Unless he’s since broken the habit, Perlman is a pathological punner. During the 10 minute drive from airport to hotel, he committed at least two dozen execrable puns in response to virtually every question or pleasantry Bee posed (me sitting there in dumbfounded silence). Most of the puns (sorry, I don’t remember any, or perhaps it’s a mercy that I don’t) represented non sequiturs in response to Bee, and, it soon became apparent, represented palpable rudeness.

Over the next two days, I came to believe that Perlman’s punning was simply a coping mechanism, and perhaps justified, because, and let there be no question of this, the guy is a superstar. Every single person I saw in the same room with him could not refrain from getting their moment, and the punning was a simple, effective device for keeping them at emotional if not physical distance. So be it.

Perlman did one gracious thing during that visit. He agreed to tape a public service announcement asking people to support their local orchestra, which was to be used to benefit both the Colorado Springs and Denver orchestras. I didn’t even mind his nasty criticism of the script, even though I wrote it. I knew a diva when I saw one. But, the PSA never ran. Perlman required approval of the final video. We sent it to him and never heard back.

None of this, however, is all that damning. I offer it only as a few remembered interactions with a star. And none of it certainly has anything to do with the man’s artistic accomplishment. No one, certainly not me, questions that. His recordings of the repertoire should last as long as those of the other great violinists of the last century. But, while I respect the recordings, I do not much respect the artist, and for this reason. I saw him perform in recital three times, all three to small town crowds, and every time I left the theatre in disgust. The obscene fee is bad enough (whether in New York or Fort Wayne, the fee’s the same), but his mesmerizing his audience into believing that charm can substitute for a sincere exhibition of talent, was bitterly disappointing — just one of the little lessons I learned that sorely challenged my zeal for the classical music business.

Perhaps, if Perlman had performed to the best of his abilities the first time around, down in south Florida, he wouldn’t have had to play it again.

(Next: why Itzhak Perlman is no Yo Yo Ma.)

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Christopher Guerin

Christopher Guerin is the author of two books each of poetry and short fiction, a novel, and more than a dozen children’s books. If he hadn’t spent 26 years as an arts administrator, including 20 years as President of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, perhaps he’d have worked a little harder getting them published. His consolation resides in his fiction and poems having been published in numerous small magazines, including Rosebud, AURA, Williams and Mary Review, Midwest Quarterly, Wittenberg Review, RE: Artes Liberales, DEROS, Wind, and Wind less Orchard. His blog, Zealotry of Guerin, features his fiction and poetry, including his sonnet sequence of poems after paintings, “Brushwork." He is the V.P. of Corporate Communications at Sweetwater Sound, Inc., the national music instrument retailer.