Early in the new film The Tar, a prominent conductor played by Cate Blanchett litters the floor with classical LPs. They range from covers of Beethoven’s symphony recordings to the brooding Leonard Bernstein, Herbert von Karajan, Claudio Abbado and many other great maestros of the 20th century in old school style on the Deutsche Grammophon label. Designed. Brahms and Bruckner.
Lydia Tarr is sorting them out with her feet — in disgust, as if she can’t bear to touch them. David, who killed all the Goliaths, as if he could now stand on them.
But it soon became clear that she hadn’t pondered the record in that spirit. She was simply looking for inspiration. For her new album in Mahler, she decided she wanted to photograph her sitting alone in her hall seat, home of her Berlin Philharmonic. Just like Abad.
Tar represents a radically different side of classical music. Few women, either in film or in real life, have reached the top tier of the world’s orchestral podiums, which is what she has achieved. Perhaps the most famous of them all, not to mention the Berliner Philharmoniker, where Blanchett’s character reigns with cool authority.
“I’ve never seen a woman at the top of this food chain,” said Marin Alsop, who was the first and only female leader of one of America’s 25 largest ensembles during her tenure with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra.
But as we will come to realize, Tar is nothing more than a radical discontinuity with the past.
In the world of music, its past is embodied in the veneration of the maestro, the hard-to-define, almost spiritual, quiet yet vital maestro who serves as the conduit of the great composer. I have given them terrible control. Their position was so full of power that it was all too easy to abuse.
As women and people of color slowly but steadily diversify the ranks of top conductors, the problems associated with maestro worship, enormous power, and eye-popping (and deficit-enhancing) salaries And so on, it’s become an assumption for many people inside and outside the field. , sexual misconduct, anger issues, reactionary repertoire selections, and reliance on name-brand conductors to sell tickets are mitigated.
Not so fast, says “Tár,” written and directed by Todd Field.
The film postulates more volatile and unruly possibilities. That is, classical music so strongly relies on the myth of the all-knowing, all-hearing leader that it continues to give those leaders some power to inevitably corrupt both women and men. It means that there is .
Lydia Tarr is no better than any of the raging, subordinate-seducing men we’re sure are often exterminated.
“Tár”: Timely Backstage Drama
Cate Blanchett plays a world-famous conductor embroiled in the #MeToo drama in Todd Field’s latest film.
That some of these men have plummeted from grace for cheating in recent years doesn’t seem to give Tarr pause. . She gives her crush a gig of plums and turns her nose to fresh sounds as she raises her bar: the film follows her rehearsing her Berlin orchestra for Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. centered. Of course, a talented young woman who attracted attention as a soloist).
“Tar” says the problem is the fundamental structure of the field: the constant over-glamorization of podiums that cast even harmless conductors in their role as fathers. And that’s a problem that isn’t necessarily solved by changing the identity of the person holding the baton. It means that there is a possibility.
Field’s women have been more powerful than any other female conductor in history. She wields it viciously and is humiliated for doing so, even more devastating than her actual male counterpart.
If its fantasy is compelling, it’s because “Tár” realistically portrays most of its subject matter, despite its loud, even horror-movie trappings. (Much more so than the ballet-related “Black Swan” or the jazz-related “Whiplash.”) Blanchett gestures at the podium like a real conductor. Some references to the symphonies she prepares are prepared as “Five” rather than “Fifth” or “Mahler Five”, but are mostly only slips of tone.
The main character is apparently partly based on Alsop, who stepped down from the podium in Baltimore last year.Until Natalie Stutzman becomes music director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra this month, the number of women in America’s top positions remains at zero. .
Also, like Tar, she is a lesbian with a partner and children. And, like Thal, she founded a fellowship program for young women seeking to follow in her footsteps. Unlike Tarr, Alsop has never been accused of wrongdoing in a fellowship or otherwise.
In a recent phone call, Alsop said the premise that women fall into traps set by traditional power structures is “premature.”
“There are no women in these positions,” she added. “There are no people of color in these positions.
Arrogant or not, this film is a reminder that the change we want and must strive for is as humility as our identity. A vision of acting not just as an exercise of authority, but as a means to build and give back to community. It serves a small group of works from the more distant past. (It’s not just men who perpetuate this limited view of repertoire. For one, Stutzman recently told The New York Times that he was proud to focus on pre-20th-century music. rice field.)
Cultural change can force humility on the ground, whether you like it or not. As classical music retreated from the mainstream after the pandemic lockdown, ticket sales once fueled by the name and face of the beloved maestro dried up. The audience has almost never heard of any conductor. Deutsche Grammophon and other record labels that touted a brooding vision of paternal authority are shadows of just a few decades ago.
A conductor is always responsible for bringing together a vision from a stage of 100 musicians. for decision making. to guide. But that leadership can be more transparent, more supportive, and more humble. This is a change that needs to be more diverse on the podium, but as ‘Tár’ warns, it’s not the only one.
“I hope that the premise that women and people of color are just as autocratic can be disproved,” Alsop said. “I hope I’m given the chance to disprove it.”