Cornered in an elevator

“I never went to the police. I never went to company management. Like everyone else, I looked the other way,” said Sylvia McNair, now 61. “But it is time now to speak out.” McNair was 28 in March 1985 when she worked with Dutoit at the Minnesota Orchestra where he was conducting and she was singing the Bach B Minor Mass.

After a rehearsal, McNair said she returned to her hotel with Dutoit and other performers and that the elevator gradually emptied until only she and the conductor remained. Dutoit immediately jumped her, she said, forcefully restraining her against the elevator wall and pushing his body into hers.

“I managed to shove him off and right at that moment, the elevator door opened. I remember saying, ‘Stop it!’ And I made a dash for it,” she said.

When she got to her room, she said she almost immediately called another singer who had been in the elevator with them.

The AP spoke to the colleague, who confirmed receiving the call, saying “she was frantic because Dutoit had pressed her against the side of the elevator, pressing into her with his whole body.”

McNair, who went on to perform with many of the world’s major orchestras and opera companies, said she does not feel traumatized by Dutoit’s behaviour 32 years ago. “But what he did was wrong,” she said.