Dan's Papers - May 15, 2009 - MUSIC CRITIC SUES A NEWSPAPER IN CINCINNATI

This is a story about a reviewer. His name is Donald Rosenberg and for a long time he has reviewed art and music for the Cincinnati Plain Dealer. Normally, one would not write about a reviewer. You might make him mad. And if you make him mad, then he might write a bad review about you. But I'm here and he's there, so I am writing this on behalf of the Cincinnati Plain Dealer and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, both of which he has just sued. I do hope they appreciate this.

Here at Dan's Papers, we expect our reviewers to write while keeping in mind who they are writing about. If Danny Glover stars in a performance at Bay Street, we hold him to a higher standard than, say, the local high schoolers, who have their senior play.

Of course, in New York City, which is the cultural capital of America, we would expect a reviewer to hold performers to the very highest standards possible.

Cincinnati is no New York City. But then it is no Southampton High School, either.

Rosenberg has written the reviews of the performances at the Cincinnati Orchestra for quite some time. And he's liked some things and not liked others. And then, quite suddenly, four years ago, he began to not like anything the orchestra played.

Because of this he has not been fired from his job reviewing the orchestra and reassigned to review other things.

Four years ago, when Rosenberg interviewed the symphony's newly hired conductor on a train going to one of the symphony's first out of area concerts, Rosenberg seems to have not personally liked Welser-Most.

Rosenberg wrote about it the next day for the paper. Who is this fellow Franz Welser-Most?

On that train, Wesler-Most had apparently tried to charm Rosenberg. But Rosenberg was having none of it. In his article, Rosenberg said that Wesler-Most referred to his Cincinnati audience as "blue haired ladies," and that to raise money for the orchestra, he'd have to charm "the rich widows." He also quoted Wesler-Most about how he felt about Cincinnati. "It's an inflated farmer's village," Wesler-Most had said. And he also said that one of his jobs was raising money for the orchestra, and "a $5,000 donation to the orchestra would not even entitle a person to a handshake with me, though a $10 million donation might get you lunch."

Now it's possible to argue that Wesler-Most was not a nice person on that trip. But that has nothing to do with his conducting.

What Rosenberg was thinking about when he wrote this stuff on the train trip is not known, but the facts are that from that day forward, almost every time Welser-Most picked up his baton and went to the podium to work up a sweat conducting for two hours of a symphony by, say, Shostakovich, what Rosenberg gave it, in print, was the big raspberry.

And so, the editors, after four years of this, changed Rosenberg's assignments. He'd still review art galleries, and he would still review musical performances, but not performances by the Cincinnati Orchestra. They'd have another reviewer do that.

As a result of this, Rosenberg now has sued the Cincinnati Plain Dealer for defamation, pain and suffering, and the Cincinnati Orchestra for tortuous interference with his job (since they most surely suggested the paper get somebody else as a reviewer of their orchestra). He's also sued the editor of the paper, Susan Goldberg, for violating Ohio's free speech principle, and just for good measure, age discrimination. He's 54.

I find this whole thing very funny. The reviewer gets his, and he doesn't like it one bit.

Perhaps the lawyer, Robert Duvin, who has been hired by the orchestra to defend it, has said it best.

"There are many people who considered Rosenberg's relentless negative assessment, when contrasted with worldwide praise, to be personal, petty and vindictive. He doesn't like what happened? That's too bad. We didn't like it either. For years.

"It's a funny grievance coming from a lifetime reporter, that the people that he writes about have an obligation to stay silent. We don't have that same platform, so what we do is write letters and have meetings. You guys get to publish every day, and bring the hammer down as often as you want on anybody you want to."

By the way, this coming weekend, the Springs Community Theatre gives the three final performances of their interpretation of the musical comedy Anything Goes at Guild Hall in East Hampton. Maybe I'll see you there.