Is it me, or do classical music critics in Chicago have a thing for cute and flashy conductors?  When then 25-year-old Gustavo Dudamel made his conducting debut at the Chicago Symphony in the spring of 2007 flailing his Medusa-like curls back and forth with a flashy smile and toreador-like attack during the Mahler First Symphony, the critics writing for the dailies wet their pants in their valentines to the young Venezuelan.  One even suggested that he be offered the CSO music directorship (a year before Riccardo Muti would finally get the job), which in terms of musical maturity, is a bit like buying a Rolls Royce for a 15-year-old with a learner’s permit. 

The hype was so intense and Dudamel’s effect on the orchestra itself so immediate and polarizing, that after that first concert and the next day’s rhapsodic reviews, puzzled players and notable area music lovers began pleading with me to weigh in.  I was flattered, naturally, but before any of this could go to my head, the orchestra PR department, which was between head publicists at that point, brought me back down to Earth when I tried to cover one of the later Dudamel concerts that week since I had missed the first: they claimed there was no room at the inn.  This was odd, given that I had been covering events at Orchestra Hall for more than a quarter of a century with usually no more than forty-eight hours in advance and often less.  And that was in the days of Solti, Abbado, Guilini, Bernstein, Horowitz, Karajan, Pavarotti and other folks who could routinely sell out concerts virtually the moment that they were announced. 

I had also proudly exposed a previous CSO publicist who tried to control coverage by picking and choosing which critics could have concert coverage access and which could not based on the gush factor that each exhibited, and said publicist mysteriously disappeared from the job.  But that was during ex-CSO president Henry Fogel’s tenure, who may well have hated what you wrote as a critic and would yell and point fingers at you, but to his everlasting credit, would always do so to your face and would just as staunchly defend your right to have your say, no matter how much he may have disagreed with it.  Surely Fogel’s successor Deborah Card would also be an ally in the cause of a free music press in Chicago, I reasoned, and contacted her.  Quoting from those same stratospheric reviews and completely missing the irony that it was those reviews that had created the phenomenon of the area Dudamel-mania in the first place, Card repeated the party line but politely added, “Just call earlier next time.” 

And so, nearly two years later, and having successfully covered hundreds of concerts at Symphony Center without a hitch there since—including the Barenboim “farewell” concerts that sold out immediately—indeed I did “call earlier,” a full month in advance, mind you, but was told by a new PR regime that once again, things might be too crowded for critics, or translation, some critics, i.e., critics whose agenda cannot either be predicted nor controlled. “Should we be asking now to cover concerts next spring to ensure future coverage?” I earnestly inquired. There was no response for weeks, until Deborah Card was asked the same question and asked to comment, which Card merely ping-ponged back to the publicist, who finally responded that there is “no exact formula” for effective press requests at the CSO, but that she “recommended” making requests “at least six weeks in advance” for “high-profile conductors, soloists or a large-scale works.”  Most fascinating is that despite wanting such gargantuan lead time and mere days before Dudamel’s appearance here, it was revealed that a PR assistant was still “sorting out” the ticket situation and that they were “hoping” to accommodate everyone who made requests, myself included. Clear as mud.

To be fair, I will naturally reserve judgment on Dudamel’s gifts or lack thereof when and if I experience them in person (the recordings have been mediocre to decent, but that medium is often more of a producer’s art than a conductor’s art), hopefully soon.  But as a former arts editor who used to umpire other attempted critic “shut-outs” by desperate publicists run amok, this whole episode strikes me as the potential classical music equivalent of a movie being such a bomb that movie critics are not given a pre-release screening so negative reviews will not keep crowds away, at least on opening day. (Dennis Polkow)

Gustavo Dudamel conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra January 8-11 at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan, (312) 294-3000.