The musical performance "would
have been a disaster if we had done it any other way. This occasion's got to be
perfect. You can't have any slip-ups."
No, that's not pop singer
Ashlee Simpson explaining why she resorted to lip-syncing a performance on "Saturday
Night Live" in 2004.
Rather, that was violin
master Itzhak Perlman speaking to The New York Times, explaining why he,
cellist Yo-Yo Ma and two other classical musicians put on the fakeroo last week
during the inauguration of President Barack Obama.
Fearing that the frigid
weather would make a live performance near-impossible, the inaugural committee
decided to record the quartet performing the new John Williams piece a few days
earlier. When the expected big chill descended on the outdoor inauguration
ceremonies, organizers went to plan B: They queued up the recording and had
Itzhak and Yo-Yo lip-sync ... er, finger-sync the piece.
Compare Perlman's defense
of his fakery to what Ashlee's manager-father, Joe Simspon, said in defense of
his allegedly ailing daughter: "Just like any artist in America, she has a
backing track that she pushes so you don't have to hear her croak through a
song on national television."
We like to believe
classical musicians are above such skullduggery, but Itzhak and Yo-Yo's yo-yo
with authenticity isn't the first time the classical world has encountered such
Milli Vanilli shenanigans.
Two years after Luciano
Pavarotti's death, the truth came out: He pulled a Milli during the opening
ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics in
The Pavarotti-nator also
had been caught with his Milli Vanilli down during a brief 1992 performance.
Pav confessed to that one, saying he lip-synced because he did not have time to
rehearse.
Similarly, classical
pianist Vladimir Horowitz recorded a live comeback album at Carnegie Hall in
1965, after a 12-year hiatus. But Vlad ordered all of his mistakes edited out
of the recording before it was released to the public. An unedited version
finally was released in 2003 -- 14 years after his death.
And these are just the
incidences we know about.
Carole Florman, a
spokeswoman for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, told
New York Times reporter Daniel J. Wakin: "No one's trying to fool anybody.
This isn't a matter of Milli Vanilli. It's not something we would announce, but
it's not something we would try to hide. The fact they were forced to perform
to tape because of the weather did not seem relevant ...."
I love taking my acoustic
guitar and finding a place to play outdoors, which is one reason I curse the
winter and look forward to the return of spring each year. I marveled at Itzhak
and Yo-Yo on inauguration day: "How do they do it?! I can't play guitar if
the temperature dips below 60!"
The temptations for pop
singers to fake it, either through lip-syncing at live shows or through
"auto-pitch" clean-ups of off-key singing in the recording studio,
are obvious: mega-fame and mega-fortune are at stake.
The temptation for
classical musicians is different, but just as seductive: Their god-sized egos
convince them their god-like reputations are at stake.
Sure, the inauguration
fake-out wasn't a matter of national security, so what's a little deceit?
Well, I do insist on
knowing that the Picasso I'm viewing is actually a Picasso, that the live Pearl
Jam concert I'm attending is actually live Pearl Jam, that the live Yo-Yo cello
is authentically live Yo-Yo cello.
If the cold was too intense
for them to perform, then they should have cancelled their performance -- or had
Itzhak stand ceremoniously and punch the "play" button on the
recording made earlier.
Or next time, get a blues
man such as T-Model Ford to perform. I bet he wouldn't have been afraid to damn
that cold weather to hell and whip up on his guitar before the new prez and the
world.
Leave a comment