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January 25, 2004

By MATTHEW GUREWITSCH

Ten years on, the conductor Anne Manson recalls a

compliment that meant more to her than most. After her

first and only appearance with the Vienna Philharmonic, in

Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov" at the Salzburg Festival, the

English tenor Philip Langridge, who had sung the conniving

Prince Shuisky, told her: "Usually, when a woman is

conducting, I see a woman conductor. Tonight, I saw a

conductor."

On Friday, Ms. Manson, 42, will make her New York debut, at

the Juilliard School in the final concert of Focus 2004, a

festival devoted to music of Ives. The program includes the

"Emerson" Concerto and the mighty Symphony No. 4, works of

daunting complexity, left in disarray at the composer's

death.

An in-depth history of women on the podium remains to be

written, but in truth, there is not yet all that much to

say. In some ways, the most impressive figure to date may

have been Sarah Caldwell, who flourished in the 1960's and

70's, founding and running the Opera Company of Boston. Eve

Queler, as founder of the Opera Orchestra of New York, has

likewise had to create her own opportunities.

Among younger talents, Marin Alsop, an American of rising

international reputation, is making waves now as principal

conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony, a second-tier

British ensemble. Simone Young, a native of Sydney, flew

high in Europe only to have her wings clipped once she went

home to run Opera Australia. (She has since taken over the

opera company in Hamburg, Germany.) Claims have been made

for other women (some of them featured on the seductively

named Web site www.beautyinmusic.com). But the genuine

breakout career is still to come.

Some say it never will. One European manager, speaking off

the cuff and off the record, recently equated conducting

with what he saw as the male role in sexual intercourse.

Such rhetoric plays poorly now, and not only for what it

says about women. Any maestros who wanted to crack the

whip, throw tantrums and spew invective today in the manner

of old-time tyrants would find themselves out the door

faster than you can say "hostile work environment."

Still, an unspoken, creeping notion may persist that

conducting represents the subjugation of the many by the

one. In a profession flush with monster egos, Ms. Manson,

who is open about her limitations, may seem insufficiently

self-assertive, excessively self-effacing. Of course, the

proof of her musicianship must lie in her performances.

Ms. Manson also acknowledges that what the musicians and

audiences see on the podium makes a difference. Bearing a

likeness to Jodie Foster and Helen Hunt, she dresses for

the stage in simply tailored black pantsuits with flat

shoes. Unlike maestros who like to toss their manes, she

keeps her hair (blond, straight, shoulder-length) under

control with a clip. An inconspicuously styled pair of

glasses completes the look: professional and elegant.

"What we are communicating does have something to do with

what we look like and what our movements are," she said

recently from her studio in Washington. "So I suppose I try

to wear clothes that will take the focus away from my

clothes. What I want the orchestra to focus on is my face

and my hands."

This month, a Dvorak program with the New Jersey Symphony

showed the crisp yet expansive expressivity of her

gestures. She coaxed from the players, an uneven lot, a

mystery and grandeur that spoke as well of her imagination

as of her technique.

Not much was made of it at the time of the Salzburg "Boris

Godunov," in 1994, but Ms. Manson's debut merits at least a

footnote in the annals of the mighty Vienna Philharmonic,

traditionally the most obdurate male bastion in the

symphonic universe. Never before had the musicians been led

by a woman, and the first official appointment of a female

player lay three years in the future.

But what Ms. Manson pulled off was as remarkable as the

fact that she was there in the first place. The opera's run

was being led in ruminative, epic - not to say, tepid -

fashion by Claudio Abbado, who on this night had a

conflicting engagement in London. Though Ms. Manson had

been hired far enough in advance for her name to appear in

the season brochure, the festival granted her no

rehearsals. Yet in her hands "Boris Godunov" sprang to

life. The dramatic accents were swift and sure, and her

tempos - propulsive but never rushed - shaved 20 minutes

off the running time,

Was this a watershed? "For me it was," Ms. Manson said,

"because it was a very empowering experience, in that I

honestly didn't know until I stood up there whether I could

pull it off. For them, I guess it wasn't. In terms of

changing their view of women, it's unlikely to have had a

big impact. But they were incredibly responsive, more than

any I've worked with since."

Every so often, such a trial puts the career of a talented

newcomer into orbit. For Ms. Manson, who has led orchestras

from The Hague to Honolulu, that has not happened.

Nevertheless, her résumé, pre- and post-Salzburg, features

many bright spots.

Raised in Cambridge, Mass., she studied music at Radcliffe

and at the Royal College of Music in London. There she

founded the Mecklenburgh Opera, a venturesome chamber

company dedicated to undiscovered pieces of the 20th

century.

Her greatest challenge, she says, was probably a project

with the crack Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris: a

four-hour film score by Michael Obst, a German composer,

for Fritz Lang's silent thriller "Dr. Mabuse, King of

Crime" (1922). "It was meant to be done like an opera," Ms.

Manson said. "Watch and accompany. At the beginning, I

thought it would be impossible. But the musicians were

absolutely phenomenal. It was wonderful, a real barrier

breaker."

As music director of the Kansas City Symphony from 1999 to

2003, Ms. Manson, long a dedicated modernist, could turn

her attention to the standard orchestral literature. "The

mission for which I was hired was to build the orchestra,"

she said. "My personal mission involved more than that. I

had done some of the Brahms symphonies and wanted to do

them all. I wanted to develop my own ideas of Beethoven, of

Mozart. I wanted to do Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring.' But

after four years, I was eager for more freedom again."

Even at that, according to Paul Horsley, the classical

music critic of The Kansas City Star, Ms. Manson's

programming eventually proved too progressive for a

community whose musical roots run as conservative as they

do deep. Ms. Manson confirms that the committee formed to

recruit her successor has made more conventional

programming a priority.

Mr. Horsley also suggests that Ms. Manson's acknowledged

inexperience in the symphonic repertory turned players

against her. On at least one occasion, he was told, an

instrumentalist "corrected" Ms. Manson's beat in a

troublesome passage, the type of helpful hint calculated to

undermine authority.

"I think her lasting legacy will be the boost she gave to

the general quality of musicianship through the hiring of

players from top conservatories," Mr. Horsley said. "We're

on the brink of a Cinderella story."

Ms. Manson is now back on the road, and her Cinderella

story will be written elsewhere. Can she envision what form

it might take?

"I'm not sure, to be honest," she said. "It would be great

to be a musical director again, under the right

circumstances. But I don't feel that it has to be right

away."

Matthew Gurewitsch is a writer based in New York.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/25/arts/mus...aaae3df53c1d5f1

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