Seven symphonies drop Dutoit
• The stellar career of world- renowned conductor Charles Dutoit has come crashing down in the wake of sexual assault accusations by three singers and a musician. Symphonies from Boston to Sydney have severed ties with the maestro who spent nearly 25 years with the Montreal Symphony, and he has cancelled guest appearances with other major orchestras.
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London, where the 81-year-old Dutoit is artistic director and principal conductor, issued a statement Friday saying the symphony and Dutoit “have jointly agreed to release him from his forthcoming concert obligations with the orchestra for the immediate future.”
Orchestras in New York, Chicago and Cleveland announced that Dutoit has withdrawn f rom upcoming concerts. In addition to Sydney and Boston, the San Francisco Symphony cut ties with Dutoit, citing the “serious nature of the allegations” detailed by The Associated Press. He had been set to appear at the New York Philharmonic next month; the other performances were scattered through 2018.
Aside from the orchestra statements attributed to Dutoit about his voluntary withdrawals, the famous conductor has remained si- lent since The Associated Press on Thursday reported on the women’s allegations.
They said Dutoit attacked them on the sidelines of rehearsals and performances with orchestras in five cities — Chicago, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Saratoga Springs, N.Y. They never filed complaints because they were young and Dutoit was the maestro.
The women, two who were named, said t he Swiss- born conductor restrained them, forced his body against theirs, sometimes put his tongue in their mouths and, in one case, stuck her hand down his pants in incidents between 1985 and 2010.
Pascale Ouimet, spokesman for the Montreal Symphony, where Dutoit served as music director for nearly 25 years until 2002, had no comment.
Natasha Gauthier, a writer based in Ottawa, said Dutoit’s reputation as a womanizer was common knowledge in the Montreal classical music world and she even wrote about her own unwanted encounter with the conductor in 1995 f or a prominent weekly magazine.
She described how she arrived in his dressing room for an interview only to have him snatch away her notebook, then lean in, putting his hand on her knee while trying to give her a massage. Gauthier quoted Dutoit as saying he would not speak to her for the story when he learned she had been inquiring about his reputation.
She didn’t expect him to be fired as a result of the story, but she was stunned by the silence from orchestra management.