Let Us Now Praise Other Great Men (and Women)

I suppose it would be kind of annoying -- you are a major urban symphony orchestra and your loudly trumpeted and glitteringly celebrated new maestro gets "severe gastric distress." He drops out of a bunch of performances, you have to rearrange your season, and your staff has to find out the extent (and perhaps, yikes, nature) of said "severe gastric distress" because a lot of people are asking a lot of questions. The whole thing would make a seasoned musician long for his or her old day job.

This is what is happening in Chicago right now, as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra faces a medical crisis featuring its brand-new conductor, Riccardo Muti. This cannot possibly be an unusual situation in the art world, even the classical music world. Beethoven is thought to have died of some combination of cirrhosis, syphilis, hepatitis or lead poisoning -- surely one of those ailments resulted in a day in bed here and there. And Leonard Bernstein made his conducting debut -- without any rehearsal -- after the New York Philharmonic conductor came down with the flu.

The issue is that today, major cultural institutions depend on their star talents to sell subscriptions, get international press coverage and prestige, and, oh yes, make great art. I am currently reading a biography of the great Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev, the man who brought us the ballet Le Sacre du Printemps. Diaghilev would last about five minutes in a contemporary arts administration position -- he was constantly in debt, hopelessly impolitic, and cast his young lover, Nijinsky, in many starring roles. Of course, Diaghilev was also extremely successful. But we only know that in hindsight. If you had invested in one of his productions and he was giving you the Russian run-around about its progress, the view from 2010 would be of no comfort.

Diaghilev did one thing that current arts producers can take advantage of now: he was always on the lookout for new talent. The situation with Riccardo Muti seems to me a reinforcement of this lesson. Art that will survive in the future is always re-cultivating itself. This is not only a hedge against the inevitable (everyone dies) or the highly likely (everyone gets sick) but a way for perfectly healthy artists to remain innovators.

I am told by the Chicago musicians I am lucky to know that Muti conducts certain types of music, and that to continue on with a certain season's program without him is just not done. That is fair, but there are other conductors and other pieces of music out there. There is a Leonard Bernstein waiting in the wings somewhere. Arts producers have the responsibility to keep the art alive no matter the health of their players.