Arts & Events

Is she guilty or isn’t she: Is TÁR a Me Too story with a female predator? That is only one of the mysteries left behind by Todd Field’s study of a world-class conductor as she crashes and burns—a backstage drama set in the rarified precincts of classical music. Who sings the unaccompanied solo that we heard at the beginning? And what language is that? What makes those random sounds that haunt the character’s solitary moments? What southeast Asian county is she hiding out in at the end, Why is the crowd in the last scene all dressed in sci-fi costumes? And does any of this really matter? (Note: the only bedroom scene shows her with her wife.) What matters beyond a doubt , is that writer/director Field and actor Cate Blanchett together have created a character you will not forget. 

We meet Lydia Tar first in the form of her resumé, whIch fills the screen as Adam Gopnik reads it aloud before their onstage interview at a packed NEW YORKER Festival: student of Leonard Bernstein, author, composer, PhD., ethnomusicologist, and the first woman conductor of the New York and Berlin Philharmonics. Lydia looks the part--regal posture, simple hair and makeup, “I own the world” stride--and she dresses it: always in black whether tuxedo on the podium, long coat on the street, or for kicking back, custom-tailored menswear with flowing cashmere sweaters, as expensive-looking as the Berlin apartment she shares with wife Sharon (Nina Hoss) who is also her concert- master. Athleisure only for strenuous jogs. Gopnik presses her to describe the challenges of being First. Times have changed, Lydia replies; “I don’t recall ever having a problem.” And the audience thinks ‘ Famous Last Words’. 

She has a problem all right, but it’s not her gender: she shares the classic flaws of men in power: overconfidence and consequent tendency to go overboard. We go “uh oh” again when she humiliates a smart-aleck student at Julliard, then terrorizes a small girl who has bullied her daughter at school; ‘I’m Petra;s father. I know what you’ve been doing, and if it doesn’t stop I’M GOING TO GET YOU!” Next she cranks out emails to a dozen orchestras, blackballing a former player who used to stalk her. But she retains our loyalty, because she’s equally abandoned in her love of music. It pours through her body when she conducts, as if she’s an instrument. (Field has said Blanchett is really leading the orchestra--impersonated by the Dresden Philharmonic-- and her piano-playing is equally real.) 

Unerring when she holds a baton, she bungles the offstage half of her job; hiring and firing, and cultivating the Board. When her mis-steps have amassed a festering heap of resentments and accusations, she outdoes herself with one unthinkable, impardonable outrage. 

‘.