Greetings from the suspiciously balmy Nutmeg State!
On Christmas, my dad, sister and I were watching The Dark Knight. I was playing with my phone during this blessed event, and decided to do some research on who the next Batman movie villain(s) would be. According to various bloggers, Johnny Depp and Eddie Murphy are both being considered for The Riddler, and Philip Seymour Hoffman will be asked to play The Penguin. Someone also mentioned Angelina Jolie as Cat Woman, meow, and one very eager lad is pushing Guy Pierce as The Black Mask on account of his – Pierce’s, not B. Mask’s, though who knows – history with director Christopher Nolan.
At what point do these things become self-fulfilling prophecies? That is, in 2008, how powerful is would-be, or potential will-be, audience participation? I’m not going to pretend I know anything about Hollywood beyond what Entourage teaches us, but one presumes casting directors, or at least interns in casting departments, read these blogs and are consequently aware of the casting buzz, true or completely false. And if casting teams learn from blog entries, blog comments and online discussion forums that there is an existing fan base for a certain casting choice, does that affect their decisions, even in the slightest? If Guy Pierce is cast in the next Batman movie, producers know x number of people who believe they are responsible for the decision are guaranteed to go see the movie. That’s worth something. Similarly, might a studio “leak” a few casting options and see how the blog-o-sphere reacts before making a final decision? I have no idea, but wouldn’t be surprised if that happened all the time.
There was a ridiculously interesting Jane Meyer New Yorker article in October about Sarah Palin’s rise to, let’s say “fame”, in which Meyer describes how Adam Brickley, a young, “self-described ‘obsessive’ political junkie” started searching for potential female Republican VP candidates:
He was running out of options, he recalled, when
he said to himself, “What about that lady who just got elected in
Alaska?” Online research revealed that she had a strong grassroots
following; as Brickley put it, “I hate to use the words ‘cult of
personality,’ but she reminded me of Obama.”Brickley registered
a Web site–palinforvp.blogspot.com–which began getting attention in the
conservative blogosphere. In the month before Palin was picked by
McCain, Brickley said, his Web site was receiving about three thousand
hits a day. Support for Palin had spread from one right-of-center
Internet site to the next. First, the popular conservative blogger
InstaPundit mentioned Brickley’s campaign. Then a site called the
American Scene said that Palin was “very appealing”; another, Stop the
A.C.L.U., described her as “a great choice.” The traditional
conservative media soon got in on the act: The American Spectator embraced Palin, and Rush Limbaugh, the radio host, praised her as “a babe.”
The rest, as they say, is noise. Incidentally, Brickley’s blog is being archived by the Library of Congress as a site of historical significance.
I’ve never asked my clients if they read their reviews. I’m sure they do, here and there, but I wonder if they ever take critics’…criticism…into consideration. And do critics, well, criticize, with the intention of change? If a critic comments on the way Eric Owens sings/plays a part on opening night, will Eric read the review and change his performance for the rest of a production’s run? (I use Eric as an example, because he is the one opera singer I work for, and thus has more opportunity in any given city to potentially change a performance than the others.) More interestingly, does the critic want Eric to actually change his performance for the remainder of the run based on his/her review, or is the critic offering his/her opinion for readers’ sakes, not the artist’s sake? It’s not so much the result – whether or not the artist will change his or her performances going forward based on reviews – that interests me, it’s the goal of the critic. Are performance reviews written with the purpose of actually changing an artist’s musicianship, presentation, or style?
Think about all the answer combinations to the question, and then consider the power dynamics, or, more accurately, the perceived power dynamics, that ensue: 1. Critic writes review intending to change an artist’s performance; artist reads and changes the way he or she performs. 2. Critic writes review intending to change an artist’s performance; artist never reads review, or would never change performance based on review. 3. Critic writes review to comment on, but not actually change, an artist’s performance; artist reads review anyway and changes the way he or she performs. 4. Critic writes review to comment on, but not actually change, an artist’s performance; artist never reads review, or would never change performance based on review.
That’s giving me a headache to think about, so back to which comes first, the buzz or the casting. If the success of American Idol has taught us anything, it’s that we-the-people like to be involved, or at least feel like we’re involved, in everything. “I voted for that person x-hundred times, therefore I will buy their CD when they win American Idol.” It’s a very simple formula: if I participated, in even the slightest way, in the casting of Danny and Sandy in Grease on Broadway by calling/texting into the TV show You’re The One that I Want (which I always found ree-donk-ulous, by the by, because that song was written for the movie version of the musical), I’m going to buy a ticket to the show. Even my church in New Canaan is running a poll on its website (“Which Gospel should be read in the coming lectionary year – Matthew, Mark, Luke, John”), I learned whilst trying to figure out what time the Christmas Pageant started last week.
Why haven’t classical music presenters and orchestras applied this model? It’s a bit tricky, because classical musicians are booked so far in advance, but not impossible. Could a presenter talk to managers – it might be best to work within the same management company – and say, “we’d like to consider three pianists from your roster to play x concerto two seasons from now. We’ll post a short bio, a photo, and a statement from the artist about the piece on our website, and our community members will vote.” To sweeten the pot for everyone involved, perhaps this could be for an organization’s gala. This would/could encourage the three artists’ fans to launch Brickley-esque campaigns for the artist they would like to see perform at the gala, consequently not only building an audience for the gala itself and the organization going forward, but generating grassroots support in a targeted community for the artists involved.
And speaking of which, don’t forget to get out there and VOTE for the Life’s a Pitch Best-Of Marketing and Publicity 2008 list.
Also, look for hahnforgrammy.blogspot.com and kingssingersforgrammy.blogspot.com.
Typo alert – as I am doubtless not the first person to inform you, the movie is The Dark Knight, with the K.
When I used to be a classical critic, I wrote pretty much for the record, not because I thought anyone was going to make any changes based on what I wrote. If I know a musician personally, I might make a suggestion in a non-“critic”al capacity, but I wouldn’t expect him/her to take it, either – the musician may have a good reason for doing whatever it is in the way I object to.
Whoops, thanks. That’s what happens when you play with your phone during a movie. -AA
Good question (as in, what do critics really want?). I’d go for option 4: I’m writing for the readers, not the artist. Partly because I’m sure s/he will have considered a multiplicity of potential choices before arriving at a performance. But also because I’m writing as an audience member, not a wannabe coach, director or teacher. I suppose musicians could make some technical adjustments/revisions if so persuaded, but with dramatic performances – including opera – you’re usually discussing a complete line of interpretation, which even in a long run is unlikely to change in any significant way. To be honest, I’m always slightly freaked out to find that an artist has read my review of their work: it’s not for them – and perhaps I like to think they’d be above such things…
I really love this blog. More than I love Alex Ross’s blog, even!! It’s so interesting to think about the psychological play behind press and publicity. You read an arts feature story in The New York Times, and you have no idea what all went into it.
Do people think the fact that critics are saying they don’t want artists to read their criticism means they (critics) are at liberty to be harsher? Also, if journalists don’t want the artists to change, then dare I ask what is the point – to just let the public know which artists are worth seeing in the future and which aren’t?
Does anyone know if a book on the history of arts criticism exists? Where the whole concept came from in the first place? If it doesn’t exist, I think Ms. Ameer should write it!
Thanks much for your kind words, but let’s not say things we can’t take back re: Alex’s blog! And I’m not sure how many copies a book about arts criticism from a publicist’s perspective would sell, but it’s a nice thought. -AA
There was an excellent critic in New York, now in DC, who wrote what she thought in a balanced way and mentioned things she thought ought to get better for singers. She herself was trained as a singer, and I thought her criticisms were good enough to be useful as guides for singers, and balanced enough to guide me in my choice of operas to see, etc.
I noticed that the public thought she was mean. I, as a singer, had been to enough events that she reviewed, to make me trust her judgment.
AT my DC recital debut some years ago, a critic wrote a lovely review and suggested Poulenc as a good composer for me. At the time I was into 19th Century, and when I looked up Poulenc he turned out to be almost a soul mate. I love it when critics really do their job.
Samantha, to (not) address your comment, part of the reason I quit being a classical critic was that I couldn’t figure out why I was doing it, other than to get free tickets to things and to write prose that I thought was fun. (When I still write reviews for my website, I write them because I think it will be fun to do so, period.) So if someone does have a good raison d’etre for classical concert criticism and posts it here in this very comment section, I’d be interested to read it.
(I say concert criticism because CD reviews obviously help people make buying decisions…)
We have got to get some major critics on here to discuss why they do what they do. I know some critics write because they love the arts, and feel that writing about the arts is the best thing they can personally do for the field of classical music. It’s like an advocacy role, and some take it very seriously, and work hard to balance criticism with a responsibility to promote their hometown organizations as worthy cultural resources. I also work regularly with a critic who actively seeks to give constructive criticism as a way for artists to improve their performances…don’t forget, the critics need arts orgs and performers on which to practice their craft, and to some extent, it’s in their interest to help them survive and thrive.
Re: critics who are perceived as “mean”: A critic is just one voice, and the beauty of the arts is that it IS subjective–everyone experiences a performance differently, and so everyone is going to have a different opinion. But the highly subjective nature of the arts must make it very hard for critics to keep their opinions on the professional level; the arts, and critiques, are by definition personal (obviously there are technical elements that are more objectively right or wrong). When a patron (not an artist or administrator) complains to me about a review (often with as much vehemence as the critics himself!), I encourage them to share their opinions with others, get a dialogue going, and respectfully “talk back” to critics. So at least those “mean” reviews get people talking and keep them engaged…and it keeps me on my toes. Wouldn’t it be boring if all reviews were good ones?
The NY/DC woman that Mr. Prada writes about about strikes fear into my little publicist heart, enrages my board and patrons, alienates my artists. She’s brilliant and truly a good person, and at times her critiques are spot on, but there’s a consistent level of snark in her writing that I don’t see with other critics. When I used to work with her more regularly, I had more than one peer publicist ask that I not pitch her, or find a way to dis-invite her to a performance to avoid a review. Of course, I’d be a bad publicist if I started turning critics away, but the example goes to the point that, at least within our industry, critics are still taken very, very seriously.
I can think of another critic who was perceived as mean–Don Rosenberg, and look what happened. I have always believed his situation was a travesty and an embarrassment to the city and the orchestra. However, I think that lost in the scandal was a discussion about how “negative” reviews affect an organization in the short- and long-terms. Did Mr. Roseberg’s “negative” (ironic quotes) reviews de-value or otherwise damage the orchestra in the eyes of patrons, the industry, etc.? Could the reviews be correlated to ticket sales? These questions go to the heart of the issue: Do critics voices matter anymore, and if so, in what ways and to who?
Music critics had a rough go of it in 2008, but I fear that with the demise of newspapers, it will only get worse in 2009. My suspicion is that criticism, in the formal sense, matters less and less. More important are features, social media and peer-to-peer buzz.
My two cents: It’s not a good idea for critics to try to change the artists or institutions they write about. They’re (we’re) not likely to succeed.
In part that’s because they (we) are lobbing shots from the outside. We don’t know what kind of comments might most influence the people we’re hoping to change. For instance, Amanda, what does Eric Owens respond to? Does he appreciate flat-out honesty, or does he like his bitter pills to be sugarcoated, at least a little? Every artist, and every institution, will have their own profile in this regard.
And then critics don’t know how the things they don’t like got to be that way. Maybe, for instance, I don’t like what Eric Owens did in some performance, and it turns out he didn’t like it, either, but was boxed in by a conductor or a stage director.
Maybe (as happened in a real-life situation I know about) an orchestral concert program changed from something that made sense to something that seemed like nonsense — a Shostakovich piano concerto dropped from the program, and a Brahms piano concerto dropped in, when the other pieces were all by Bartok and Shostakovich — because the piano soloist announced that he would only play Brahms. Critics could scream all they wanted, but unless they could target their screaming at the actual problem, they’d scream in vain. The orchestra knew perfectly well that the new program was
I could multiply these examples endlessly, but I’ll cite one more general point. Critics have to know what’s possible. You can’t, for instance, ask a tenor without a lyrical bone in his body to sing lyrically. But you might, if you really knew singing, point out places in the tenor’s current role where he might approximate lyrical singing more than he currently does, for instance by singing more softly, or by pronouncing his consonants with a lot less vigor.
A real-life example of something similar: We might hear a tenor singing Radames, in Aida, without a voice big or clarion enough for the role. We might hear him forcing his sound, in an attempt to do what was needed. In our review, we might deplore that, and tell they guy simply to stop singing the part.
Or, more helpfully, we might remember how Carlo Bergonzi sang Radames without a clarion voice, and advise our tenor to substitute vehement diction for any attempt to beef up his sound, and point out that this worked for Bergonzi (everywhere except the last line of the third act, “Io resto a te,” sung on high As that either are big enough or not, with nothing that can be substituted for vocal heft). At that point, we at least might be speaking the singer’s language, or in other words making a suggestion that a singer might actually implement.
Which means, I think, that to be helpful, critics finally have to know what goes on behind the scenes. Many failures of criticism, and especially criticism that attempts to make changes, stem from not knowing enough. One prominent critic has often urged orchestras to hire a particular conductor as music director. People at those orchestras will say privately that the conductor in question bombed with the musicians — and also with soloists — when he was engaged. But the critic didn’t know that, so his urging isn’t going to do much good. The critic should have found out first why this conductor hasn’t been hired as music director by any of the orchestras in question, and only then make his suggestion. (If, that is — now having more information — he still wants to make it.)
I can remember two cases when I made some changes. But it’s important to say that in neither case did I expect to do it. The first involved a pianist I reviewed in the ’80s, a new music specialist who’d put some ragtime on a concert program. I complained that she didn’t grasp how ragtime rhythm worked — that she needed to keep the stride pattern in the left hand steady, and syncopate the right hand against that. Years later, I happened to run into her, and to my amazement she told me that this comment had helped her. I’d never dreamed that it would. I just was saying what I thought.
The other case involved the Horizons new music festivals that the New York Philharmonic put on in 1983 and 1984. From my perch at the Village Voice, I’d attacked the first one, because it didn’t include any of the downtown new music I was reviewing (and advocating) back then. Here, I have to say, I failed in something very big. I could object to the content of the festival, but I completely failed to see how notable it was for the Philharmonic to put on two weeks of new music in a special festival after the regular season. I blush to think of how short-sighted I was, no matter how justified my criticism may have been.
But when the second festival was being planned, I got a phone call from the artistic director of the festival, asking, in confidence, which downtown artists I might recommend. I suggested someone, who in fact was booked to perform, and had a great success.
There were some special circumstances here, though. I knew the artistic director, so we didn’t have to overcome some outside vs. inside communication problem. And, I have to stress once more, I didn’t set out to make a change in what the Philharmonic did. I just said what I thought, and was quite amazed to get that phone call. If anything was in my favor, besides knowing the guy involved, it might have been that I was talking about something I really did know a lot about, so people had reason to trust me. But they equally might have thought I was a pain in the neck with terrible taste. Which is just another reason why critics shouldn’t — at least as a general rule — hope to be influential. Only in special circumstances can they be so.
My two cents, as I said.
Any critic who thinks he can change an artists approach/performance or who writes because he WANTS to have an artist change is a ludicrous fop. I’m glad Sandow (in ever so many, different words) states that so unequivocally. I think he and – from reading her – his wife are right on the money.
Unless a personal relationship has been struck with an artist (in which case public reviews become more than questionable — but it’s a common enough practice), he or she won’t bother listening (and shouldn’t!). Not, at any rate, if they have achieved any sort of stature whatsoever.
Reviews are for audiences/listeners – as a helping guide [not instruction!] to concerts, as a guide to their own likes and dislikes. Reviews are for young artists to cut out and past on their CV. They are for the arts organizations.
—
“part of the reason I quit being a classical critic was that I couldn’t figure out why I was doing it”
No one could. Thanks for having quit.
“part of the reason I quit being a classical critic was that I couldn’t figure out why I was doing it”
No one could. Thanks for having quit.
Big up…to all my haters! Maybe I should start criticking again.
A very interesting question, Amanda! I mostly agree with Greg. Actually, I believe there are two different issues here: institutions and artists. I do occasionally hope to have some impact on how institutions think and act. I’m cautiously proud of a couple of instances where my writing may have had a bit of influence. Institutions have a tendency to make decisions by committee, and decisions made by committee can often be poor. Critics certainly have a role to play. It’s good for someone to stand up and say, you know, moving the Philharmonic back to Carnegie Hall is a really bad idea. When it comes to individual artists, however, I am pretty horrified by the idea that something I say might lead them to make a change. I believe artists should entirely tune out the critics. Indeed, most do. The criticism that counts is that which comes from trusted colleagues. Even a critic’s praise can be a dangerous quantity. Glenda Dawn Goss made a good case in her book on Sibelius and Olin Downes that Downes’ incessant hero-worship contributed to the shutdown of Sibelius’ creativity. I feel my most precious asset as a critic is my enthusiasm, and yet I know full well that passion can cause harm. On the whole, I like the idea of being read, but I don’t like the idea of my writing having a measurable effect. That’s one reason I was never comfortable at the New York Times, where the effect was immediate and obvious.
When he was writing, Mr. Lindemann was a thoughtful and committed critic. Moreover, he was a joy to work with, which is not always the case. I couldn’t speculate as to why he critiqued, but if his opinion was valued (and it was!) by readers, then he was playing an important role.
Don’t hate in 08…09.