Charles Dutoit


Charles Édouard Dutoit is a Swiss conductor. He is currently the principal guest conductor for the St-Petersburg Philharmonic and co-director of the MISA Festival in Shanghai. In 2017, he became the 103rd recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal Award. Dutoit is the former artistic director and principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor emeritus of the NHK Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo, and was conductor laureate of the Philadelphia Orchestra until the orchestra stripped him of the title after multiple allegations of sexual assault.
He is the former music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Orchestre National de France, and as of 2017, conductor emeritus of the Verbier Music Festival Orchestra. He is an honorary member of the Ravel Foundation in France and the Stravinsky Foundation in Switzerland.
In December 2017, following allegations of sexual assault, the Boston and San Francisco symphonies cancelled his engagements, and he withdrew from conducting scheduled concerts in New York, Cleveland and Chicago. In a statement, Dutoit denied the charges.

Biography

Dutoit was born in Lausanne, Switzerland. He studied there, and graduated from the Conservatoire de musique de Genève, where he won first prize in conducting. Then he went to the Accademia Chigiana in Siena at the invitation of Alceo Galliera. In his younger days, he frequently attended Ernest Ansermet's rehearsals and had a personal acquaintance with him. He also worked with Herbert von Karajan at Lucerne as a member of the festival youth orchestra and studied at Tanglewood.
Dutoit began his professional music career in 1957 as a viola player with various orchestras across Europe and South America. In January 1959, he made his debut as a professional conductor with an orchestra of Radio Lausanne and Martha Argerich. From 1959 he was a guest conductor of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra. After this, he was the conductor for Radio Zurich until 1967, when he took over the Bern Symphony Orchestra from Paul Kletzki, where he stayed for 11 years.
While head of the Bern Symphony, he also conducted the National Symphony Orchestra of Mexico from 1973 to 1975, and Sweden's Gothenburg Symphony from 1975 to 1978. Dutoit was principal guest conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra in the early 1980s.
In 1977, Dutoit became the artistic director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. In the words of Glasgow-based music critic Kate Molleson: "A 20-year recording contract with Decca made the MSO the most recorded orchestra in the world, and the best of these recordings — Ravel's La Valse and Daphnis et Chloe, Debussy's La Mer, Stravinsky's French-period ballets — remain unsurpassed." Reaction to Dutoit joining the Montreal Symphony was positive. Peter G. Davis stated that Dutoit transformed the Montreal Symphony. New York Magazine wrote similarly about Dutoit, adding that he was noted for the championing of new Canadian music. Throughout these years, he called without success for a new symphony concert hall for Montréal. Dutoit resigned from the Montreal Symphony in April 2002, with immediate effect, after the Quebec Musicians Guild complained about what it called Dutoit's "offensive behaviour and complete lack of respect for the musicians". In January 2018, the OSM acknowledged ignoring complaints from musicians of verbal and 'psychological harassment' by Dutoit dating back to the 1990s. He did not return to the OSM as a guest conductor until 2016, in a concert at the new Maison Symphonique de Montréal.
Dutoit has received more than 40 international awards and distinctions, including two Grammy Awards, several Juno Awards, the Grand Prix du Président de la République, the Prix mondial du disque de Montreux, the Amsterdam Edison Award, the Japan Record Academy Award, and the German Music Critics' Award. He and the OSM made many recordings for the Decca/London label.
Dutoit first conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1980. From 1990 to 1999, he was music director of the orchestra's summer concerts at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts. From 1990 to 2010, he was artistic director and principal conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra's summer festival in Saratoga Springs, New York. In 1991, he was made an Honorary Citizen of the city of Philadelphia. In February 2007, Dutoit was named the orchestra's chief conductor and artistic adviser, for a contract of four years, effective September 2008. Following the conclusion of his contract in Philadelphia in 2012, the orchestra named him its conductor laureate, as of the 2012–13 season.
Since 1990, Dutoit has directed the Pacific Music Festival in Japan. From 1991 to 2001, Dutoit was Music Director of the Orchestre National de France, with whom he made a number of recordings and toured extensively. In 1996, he was appointed principal conductor and in 1998 music director of Tokyo's NHK Symphony Orchestra. For the NHK television network, he made a series of documentary films for the young people called "Cities of Music" in Venice, St Petersburg, Tokyo, Buenos Aires, New York, Vienna, Budapest, Leipzig, Dresden, Paris and London. In 1997, he was made an honorary Officer of the Order of Canada. He is also one of a handful of non-Canadian citizens to be a Grand Officer of the Ordre national du Québec.
In April 2007, Dutoit was named principal conductor and artistic director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra as of 2009. In October 2019 he was scheduled to stand down as the RPO's principal conductor and to take the title of Honorary Conductor for Life of the orchestra, but instead he resigned in January 2018. Between 2009 and 2017, Dutoit also served as the music director of the Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland. In April 2014, Dutoit received the Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Classical Music Awards. He was also made an honorary member of Fondation Igor Stravinsky in Geneva and Fondation Ravel in Monfort l'Amaury, France.
In September 2018, Dutoit was named principal guest conductor of the St Petersburg Philharmonic, effective May 2019.

Personal life

Dutoit shuns publicity and protects his private life from the media. He has been married four times. His first marriage was to Ruth Cury, by whom he has a son, Ivan, who lives in Santa Monica, California, with his family, who in turn has two children: Anne-Sophie and Jean-Sebastian. He was also married to the world-renowned Argentine concert pianist Martha Argerich and to the Canadian economist Marie-Josée Drouin. He is currently married to Canadian violinist Chantal Juillet.

Allegations of sexual assault

On 21 December 2017, Jocelyn Gecker of the Associated Press reported that four women had accused Dutoit of sexually assaulting them, with the alleged attacks having taken place between the late 1970s and 2010. The alleged incidents occurred in a variety of places, in Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Tanglewood, Paris, Montreal, and Saratoga Springs, New York. They included claims that the conductor variously physically restrained the women, forced his body against theirs, put his tongue in their mouths, stuck one woman's hand down his pants, and an anonymous allegation of rape.
One of these allegations has been contested by eyewitnesses.
Paula Rasmussen, a former mezzo-soprano reported that Dutoit pushed her against a wall and "shoved my hand down his pants and shoved his tongue down my throat" in his dressing room at the Los Angeles Opera in September 1991.
Sylvia McNair, a two-time Grammy Award-winning soprano and now a retired faculty member at Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music, alleged that when she was 28 years old, Dutoit "pressed his knee way up between my legs and pressed himself all over me" and "tried to have his way" with her in the elevator of a hotel, after a rehearsal with the Minnesota Orchestra in 1985. Miss McNair appeared again with Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony at Carnegie Hall in 1988 as a last-minute replacement.
Two more women made similar charges the next day.
Pianist Jenny Q. Chai reported: "he ran his hands all over my body and tried to kiss me and stick his tongue in my mouth" after a concert with the Philadelphia Orchestra, in front of the public, his former wife and daughter.
Another woman, a singer performing with the Philadelphia Orchestra, claimed Dutoit had assaulted her on four occasions when she was in her 30s; first in 2006 at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in upstate New York and then in 2010 in Philadelphia.
The Philadelphia Orchestra Association released a statement saying: "We had no knowledge of these allegations."
Furthermore, Joseph H. Kluger, who was the orchestra's president during much of Dutoit's time in Philadelphia said that he was "not aware of any occasion in which anybody brought, certainly not to my attention or anyone else's at the Philadelphia Orchestra, any complaints about his behavior throughout the time I was there."
A fourth accuser, who was a 24-year-old musician with the Civic Orchestra of Chicago when Dutoit visited in 2006 to guest-conduct the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, alleged that Dutoit forced himself on her while she was having lunch with him in his hotel room.
All four of these women said they felt comfortable speaking up after Metropolitan Opera conductor James Levine was suspended after allegations against him were made public.
In January 2018 a fifth accuser, British theatre administrator Fiona Allan, came forward. The former intern said that Dutoit sexually assaulted her when he was a Boston Symphony Orchestra guest conductor at Tanglewood and she delivered a document to his dressing room, 20 years prior. She said he had maneuvered her up against a wall in his dressing room, and put his hand on her breast. She said she was later warned not to see him alone: "They had a system in place. And the system was called: Don't go in there by yourself. Like, we've had complaints, therefore the way we get around that is that we send people in, in pairs. Not: We don't employ that person anymore." Although the Boston Symphony replied "it had received no complaints against Dutoit, a regular guest conductor since 1981, prior to Allan's," it revoked an honorary title it had given the conductor in 2016 at Tanglewood and severed all ties with him, stating: "The Boston Symphony Orchestra is committed to a zero tolerance policy towards anyone who exhibits inappropriate behavior in the workplace, and behavior that runs counter to these core values will always be met with serious consequences." In March 2018, the BSO announced that its investigators had determined that Ms. Allan's allegations were "credible", and also that investigators had interviewed three other women who "credibly described incidents in the 1980s and 1990s in which they, too, were victims of sexual misconduct by Mr. Dutoit."
A sixth accuser, French soprano Anne-Sophie Schmidt, said that when she was 31 in March 1995 in Paris, Dutoit pushed her up against a wall, forcibly kissed her, and groped her breasts and between her legs.
The number of women accusing Dutoit of sexual assault increased to 10 on 11 January 2018, as new women, several anonymous, came forward accusing him of attacks in the United States, Paris, and Montreal since the late 1970s. One new anonymous accuser was a 28-year-old female musician who had been auditioning for an orchestra in 1988, as Dutoit was guest-conducting. They were staying at the same hotel. Dutoit called her, said that his luggage was broken, and asked if she had a certain tool sometimes used to fix musical instruments. When she brought it to his hotel room, he invited her in and offered her a drink, which she declined. Within minutes: "He came closer to me and tried to kiss me, and held my head so strongly it ripped my earring out. He pinned my wrists to the wall and pushed me to the bed. His pants were down in a split second and he was inside me before I could blink." She cried, telling him to stop, and that she was married, but he continued. When she then cried out that she was not on birth control, he pushed her out the door, saying: "I'll get some condoms and I'll get you back." Two other musicians in the orchestra said that the woman confided in them after the encounter.
Musician Mary Lou Basaraba was in her early 20s and working as a journalist in 1977-78 when the Montreal Symphony Orchestra asked her to interview Dutoit. She said she was told Dutoit had specifically requested that she be the interviewer, and that it be conducted at his apartment. "When he answered the door, he looked totally dishevelled….I thought, Hmm, this is not looking promising. But I went in…."
Within minutes of her arrival, she said, Dutoit forced himself on her, kissed her, and placed his hands on her breasts and crotch.
After pushing him away, "she suggested they still do the interview, so they went to a nearby restaurant and then returned to the apartment."
A few days later, it was reported in the Journal de Montreal she had refused his invitation to the restaurant. Basaraba "said she felt compelled to tell her story of 1978 after reading the recent accusation of sexual assault against Dutoit made by mezzo-soprano Paula Rasmussen and getting in touch with her." "I have universal empathy for all the women who came forward.
Canadian soprano Pauline Vaillancourt said that Dutoit tried to force himself on her in 1981, after inviting her to dinner "to discuss work" after her performance as a soloist with the Montreal Symphony. While driving her home, she said, he pulled his car into a dark spot, groped her breasts and legs, and asked her to come back to his room. She said she pushed him away. Vaillancourt's brother, Jean-Eudes Vaillancourt, a pianist, conductor, and classical music professor at the University of Montreal, said his sister told him of the incident the next day.
In January 2018, following physical and sexual assault allegations, he resigned from his position as artistic director and principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Reaction

Joe Kluger, who served as the orchestra's president for 16 years through 2005, said that rumors of what he called Dutoit's flirtatious "inappropriate behavior" were widespread, and that the leadership "made it clear to everyone who worked on staff with the Philadelphia Orchestra to be careful and bring to us any examples of any behavior that was inappropriate. No one did while I was there."
The Royal Philharmonic initially announced in December 2017 that it and Dutoit agreed to cancel his pending engagements. The orchestra said "These accusations are taken very seriously by the orchestra and the RPO believes that the truth of the matter should be determined by the legal process. The immediate action taken by the RPO and Charles Dutoit allows time for a clear picture to be established. Charles Dutoit needs to be given a fair opportunity to seek legal advice and contest these accusations." Several other orchestras either cancelled engagements or severed ties with Dutoit, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Dutoit said in a statement: "Whilst informal physical contact is commonplace in the arts world as a mutual gesture of friendship, the serious accusations made involving coercion and forced physical contact have absolutely no basis in truth."
On 24 December 2017, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra announced that it had launched a sexual harassment investigation by an independent third party after receiving a complaint against Dutoit from a woman not named in earlier accounts. The Boston Symphony Orchestra also began an investigation.
The Royal Philharmonic announced subsequently, on 10 January 2018, that Dutoit had left all roles with the orchestra with immediate effect. It said: "Whilst Mr Dutoit continues to seek legal counsel to defend himself, the protracted uncertainty and media reporting makes Mr Dutoit's position with the orchestra untenable. The RPO is committed to the highest standards of ethical behaviour and takes very seriously its responsibility to maintain a safe working environment for all its artists, musicians and staff." The New York Times discussed Dutoit as a conductor making a comeback in Europe despite credible charges of sexual misconduct.
In January 2018, Canadian CBC Radio/CBC Radio Two adopted a policy of no longer crediting Dutoit as conductor when they played recordings of music he had conducted; they did this rather than remove the recordings entirely from their broadcasts. WRTI-FM, a local Philadelphia classical radio station, decided to not play his recordings, at least for now.

Orchestras with which Dutoit has recorded