Simon Callow doing Largo al X-factotum?
Cowell, surely?
It does strike me that this is going considerably further into inanity than most other such ventures: basically, one can sing or one can't: one can dance or one can't (though the learning of choreography is a different matter altogther
), but even those with a proven knowledge of music (even their own music in Delius's case) can't be guaranteed to make conductors: the final result is in the hands of the performers, who may produce results despite what the conductor is doing. The Tony Palmer RVW film, with the quotation of him shouting at the Leith Hill singers "I've told you a hundred times,
don't look at me", and the Vienna New Year's Day Concert, where despite maestro Prêtre's elegant characterisation of what he wanted, most of the orchestra hardly ever looked at him, both bear witness to this, as do occasional reports of a certain BBC band all but ignoring the efforts of certain conductors. It does make it all the more easily fixable, of course....
