Philly and YNS

(Yannick Nezet Seguin. Somehow, that chain on his neck doesn't inspire confidence in me.)

Every year there's a new conductor who seems to be popping up on all the major podiums in the international circuit. Whether or not said conductors deserve it, they seem to make debuts everywhere all at once, and suddenly every major orchestra tries to snap up a piece of them before he gets locked into a long-term arrangement (and it's always a he) with all the judiciousness and restraint of a mobbed orgy. Dudamania has barely had time to subside, and suddenly people are now swooning over the talents of a Quebecois and Charles Dutoit-protege named Yannick Nezet Seguin. He's 35 years old, for ten years he's been director of the Metropolitan Orchestra of Montreal (Montreal's semi-pro #2 orchestra), and before anybody knew it he was snapped up to succeed Valery Gergiev as director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Principal Guest Conductor of the London Philharmonic, and a yearly guest conducting perch at the Met with whispers that Peter Gelb is grooming him to take over for the now-ever-sickly James Levine.


(Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony doing Scheherezade by Rimsky-Korsakov. The sort of flashy, colorful piece that they perhaps did better than any partnership of their generation.)

But now the door has officially closed on YNS. Starting in 2012, he is director of the Philadelphia Orchestra. How will he find the time to budget all these commitments? Nobody knows, and nobody seems to care all that much. But just to give some context Philly's chief conductor Charles Dutoit. Dutoit is the type of conductor for whom the term 'jet-set maestro' was invented. Dutoit is the current Chief Conductor in Philly, Chief Conductor being a temporary position that has far less responsibility than a Music Director. Twice in the last twenty years Dutoit made it quite well known that he was royally pissed at being passed over as Philly's Music Director. Never mind that at the short list of jobs he's held over the last forty years include music director of the Montreal Symphony, the French National Orchestra, the NHK Symphony in Tokyo, The Royal Philharmonic in London, the Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland, The Bern Symphony, principal guest conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra, the National Symphony of Mexico, and the Gothenburg Symphony. In his weeks off, Dutoit also had a full guest conducting schedule. Dutoit was, and is, one of the most talented conductors in the world, able to give performances of French music that few conductors in history can ever touch. But how can any conductor expect to prepare properly for so many gigs? In the eighties, Dutoit was spoken of as one of a handful of the greatest conductors in the world. A quarter century later, he is now a kind of sad figure. His much venerated relationship with the Montreal Symphony came undone extremely publicly in 2002, and conductors far less eminent three decades ago like Mariss Jansons and Charles Mackerras have grown into undisputable giants while Dutoit is just a B-list conductor, called in for gigs when more eminent figures say no. The Philadelphia Orchestra is currently a shadow of its former self. The organization runs a staggering debt, it had a very public breach with its last Music Director Christoph Eschenbach, it publicly courted to of the world's greatest conductors, Simon Rattle and Vladimir Jurowski, only to get the door slammed, it currently has no Music Director, no Executive Director, and no Board Chairman, and - worst of all - the lauded "Philadelphia Sound" is in remission. From many many reports, Philadelphia plays lackluster concerts these days and badly needs leadership that can give it back its identity. And even in this sad state, the Philadelphia Orchestra did not trust Dutoit enough to make him Music Director.

Is YNS as talented as Dutoit? I don't think anybody doubts that for a moment. But YNS is starting the major phase of his career with the one gig that his mentor seems to have coveted for the whole of it. If he wants to make anything of it at all, he has to learn from his predecessor's mistakes and settle down. If he revives fortunes in Philly, he is a great conductor indeed. But any great conductor should know an opportunity when he has one.