IT TAKES A WOMAN

We see that Emma Rodgers, blogging at ABC News: Arts and Entertainment, has taken note of the fact that the Australian conductor Simone Young, below, has a gig to guest-conduct the 99.99999% all-male Vienna Philharmonic in a concert this coming weekend (which will make her the first woman ever to do so). (See the Postscript.)

Citing CIRCLE JERKS, our recent item about the orchestra's sexism, Rodgers wonders "whether [the orchestra's] long-standing critics (and there appear to be many of them) will hail Young's achievement as more than just a token gesture by the orchestra."

Well, Emma, let us help you out: No, we won't. That's the short answer.

Here's the long answer. It's an oldie but goodie: Musical Misogyny, a radio interview of the Vienna Philharmonic on WDR.

And here's the medium-length, most-up-to-date answer from the orchestra's chief troublemaker, William Osborne:

The Philharmonic's token gestures represent a small step forward. Even though the orchestra has long maintained gender and ethnic uniformity among its members, it has always allowed for outside influence through guest conductors and soloists. The orchestra has found it beneficial to consciously use these guests to rehabilitate its public image, while at the same time quietly denying rank and file membership to women and racial minorities.

This has been an effective public relations tool for resisting change. At times, the Philharmonic has even tried to capitalize on these gestures in financial terms. For instance, during the Waldheim affair in the late 1980's, the Austrian government made plans to send the Vienna Philharmonic to Israel with Leonard Bernstein. The orchestra, which is privately owned and operated by the players, who share the profits among themselves, used the occasion -- unsuccessfully -- to try to force the government to give it a permanent tax break.

We should also mention, in due fairness, that when Osborne first learned of Young's guest-conducting gig, he posted a widely distributed e-mail on Nov. 5 that began: "How about some good VPo news." A few days later the newspapers started writing about it, with some really nice hype, i.e.: "An Australian woman has broken one of the world's last bastions of male domination ..."

-- Tireless Staff of Thousands

Postscript: Today's New York Times notes that Young is the third woman to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic. "The orchestra was led by Carmen Studer Weingartner in Salzburg and Vienna in 1935 and by Anne Manson in Salzburg in 1994," it reports in Arts, Briefly. But Manson conducted the Salzberger Festspiel Orchestra, which technically is not the Vienna Philharmonic. The Phil does not choose the Festspiel conductors. Also, it denies that Manson ever conducted it. So, officially at least, Young is the first.