“In the past few days, the classical music community has been set aflame by recent comments from three prominent male conductors”— Russian conductors Yuri Temirkanov and Vasily Petrenko, and now Bruno Mantovani, director of the Paris Conservatory—“who are—steel yourself—actually saying that women are not capable of standing on the podium,” writes Anastasia Tsioulcas on Thursday (10/9) at NPR’s Deceptive Cadence blog. “Mantovani marvels, ‘Who could have imagined twenty years ago that a woman (Marin Aslop) [sic] would conduct the closing concert at Proms?’ Well, considering the fact that Alsop had already embarked on a major career around the time that Mantovani was still in lycée, the only astonishment is that it took until 2013 for the Proms to catch up with her.… And as to his remarks about women’s inability to withstand the physical rigors of the job (‘Sometimes women are disheartened by the physical aspect—conducting, flying, conducting again is quite demanding’), never mind passing the smelling salts to Hillary Clinton. I’d like to see him take on his countrywoman Joan of Arc…. I would like to hear the women in our community speak up as well…. We find ourselves at a critical juncture, especially in terms of public perception of our field.”
Posted October 11, 2013
