Image via www.xavierdemaistre.com
French harpist Xavier de Maistre is an artist of rare skill. His virtuoso abilities have earned him prestigious awards and contracts with major record labels, as well as international invitations to perform on the greatest concert platforms in the world. But ahead of his arrival in Australia earlier this year, to perform with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, it wasn’t just the 44-year-old’s musical prowess making headlines, but also another accolade: Xavier de Maistre has been dubbed ‘the world’s sexiest harp player.’
In case you were wondering, this isn’t an official title. But nonetheless, it’s a laurel that’s become every bit as acknowledged as any of de Maistre’s actual prize wins, now an indelible part of his public image. And he’s far from the only musician to be packaged as an object of desire.
Take, for example, German opera star Jonas Kaufmann, known colloquially as ‘the hottest tenor in the world,’ or Chinese piano prodigy Yuja Wang, whose penchant for short skirts and stiletto heels has come to define her almost as much as her keyboard skills. In recent decades, as centuries of Western musical tradition has been put through its paces by evolving technologies, changing tastes and globalised commerce, becoming a classical star has increasingly gone hand in hand with being, to paraphrase Scottish violinist Nicola Benedetti, ‘sexed up.’
Being declared ‘the world’s sexiest’ is rarely, if ever, an explicit part of a classical musician’s publicity, but you need only look to the smouldering styling and sultry photography that has become the status quo for CD slicks and concert posters to join the dots. This marketing tactic is by no means a unanimous trend, but it is, nonetheless, a contentious one. Sex appeal may do little to reflect artistic kudos, musical or otherwise, but capitalising on good looks is far from an uncommon commercial strategy; it may well be the most threadbare of promotional maxims that ‘sex sells.’ And yet, allowing such an apparently superficial quality stand shoulder to shoulder with decades of training and world class artistry seems an insult to that performer’s hard earned accomplishments.
At the core of this debate is a simple question: if a musician sounds good, why should it matter that they look good? The answer is far less succinct. One perspective, as shared by violinist Tasmin Little, is that such cosmetic concerns are a recent development, adopted in an attempt to overcome classical music’s ‘fusty’ reputation. It’s likely both sides of the argument would agree with this assessment, albeit from very different viewpoints.
On the one hand, this could be seen as unacceptably reductive. It begs the question, is hoodwinking a broader public to engage with classical music via glossy visuals a tacit acknowledgment that it can no longer connect with society on its own terms? Have classical marketers become snake oil salesmen, snaring would-be record and ticket buyers with spectacle over substance? The antithesis is that such image control is necessary to ensure classical music remains relevant while meeting the expectations of modern consumers. It could even be said that highlighting sex appeal is a way to inoculate the art form against any dreaded inkling of ‘fusty’ outmodedness.
As the General Manager of Classical and Jazz for Universal Music Australia, Cyrus Meher-Homji has a detailed understanding of both stances. ‘If the artist is inherently good looking, then we won’t shy away from displaying that. Then again, classical music artists have been able to achieve critical and audience acclaim without pandering to an image-obsessed public – Grigori Sokolov comes to mind as an artist recently signed by Deutsche Grammophon,’ he notes.
‘‘If the artist is inherently good looking, then we won’t shy away from displaying that.’
It’s hard to deny that valid arguments exist both for and against playing up to certain image standards, but on a purely artistic level, it’s of course easier to agree that appearance has no bearing on a musician’s abilities, particularly if it follows that landing a coveted record deal or prestigious concert appearance could potentially hinge on being photogenic.
But is this ideal – of the sacrosanct artist, exempt from lowly things like well-groomed hair and flawless fashion – hopelessly naive? As Meher-Homji explains, it may be a fiction altogether. Public expectation has long played a significant role in the way musicians have presented and promoted themselves.
‘Historically, many of the great artists were obsessed with their appearance and went to great lengths to look their best (whether on stage or via publicity): think of Mozart, Mendelssohn, or Gershwin, and more recently, Herbert von Karajan. There was also Eileen Joyce, of course, star Australian pianist, darling of audiences, who miffed critics by changing her dresses between concertos on a single evening. Mind you, she sometimes played three, and I’d wager you’d probably get rather sweaty tackling Rach 2, Tchaik 1 and Prokofiev 3 in a single evening, so there’s a practical consideration there too. Eileen was a beauty, and just as today Kiri Te Kanawa will front a Rolex ad, so Eileen Joyce was one of the “faces” of Ovaltine, in the years following World War II.’
And as much as there is historical precedent revealing the consistency with which musicians have managed their public image, there is also ample evidence for the ways this has evolved over the years. Even a glance at recent shifts in the ways classical artists have presented themselves shows this in action. The archetypal prima donna or tyrannical maestro exist in living memory and indeed were behaviours all but expected of musicians at the highest levels of the classical industry, well into the 20th century. And yet today, they are largely considered affectations of the past. In fact, a conductor in the infamous mode of the great Arturo Toscanini – whose blistering rants at the smallest error only added to his legendary reputation – is now almost inconceivable.
So, perhaps it could be argued that repositioning the classical superstar as a sex symbol, rather than a temperamental diva, is merely part of a continuum of change as artists have morphed to fit the public yen. This may be so, but it remains a problematic conclusion. In the era of #MeToo, the sexualisation of artists is fraught with ethical concerns, although that’s not to imply the public image of classical musicians is crafted without their input or consent.
Repositioning the classical superstar as a sex symbol, rather than a temperamental diva, is part of a continuum of change…
But complicit as classical stars may be, a look beyond the borders of classical music at other art forms seems to reveal a double standard: why is it that the same seductive identities aren’t being trotted out, at least to the same extent, to sell tickets for the theatre? Again, it seems classical music is finding its place amongst the cultural and commercial complexities of the now.
There’s little doubt that, thanks to the white-knuckle pace of social media, sound bites and enticing images are the preferred vehicle for the zeitgeist, and the sheer ubiquity of smart phones have made these devices the most incisive portal for advertisers of every variety, arts presenters included. But in a society where ideas have but seconds to connect with a viewer before being swiped out of sight, the immediacy of the familiar is a powerful tool, and celebrity performers have proven particularly useful for theatre companies in this regard. Take for example Melbourne Theatre Company’s 2017 production of Macbeth, starring Hollywood heartthrob Jai Courtney, which was a bonanza at the box office drawing many first time theatregoers eager to see the action hero in the flesh.
For the classical music industry, as audience bases for have aged and record sales have dwindled, the question of how to attract the next generations of classical lovers remains a primary concern. But one person’s maestro is another one’s ‘meh,’ and even the most celebrated classical stars in the world can likely stroll down an average Australian street without being mobbed by leagues of fans.
And if celebrity can be said to be the most popular form of familiarity, the question faced by classical promoters is how to use a different kind of the familiar in a similarly magnetic way. So let us ask the question again: if a musician sounds good, why should it matter that they look good? Because in an age of social media, a picture sings a thousand notes, and if A-list fame can’t be harnessed, as it has for theatre companies, another type of familiarity, namely beauty (albeit of a rather superficial kind), may be the next best thing.
