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On Jun 4, 5:20 am, Ortrud <ortrudvonbrab...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Indeed Ortrud. The WSJ article bears quoting in full. What a
veritable cesspool!

The Manager as Double Agent
By MATTHEW GUREWITSCH
June 3, 2008; Page D7
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121244733967139457.html?mod=at_leisur
Copyright © 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Last fall, the Universal Music Group, owners of the premier classical
labels Decca and Deutsche Grammophon, sent shock waves through the
industry when they launched, without warning, the Universal Music
Artist Agency, offering the company's glamorous roster of recording
artists -- we are talking the likes of Renée Fleming and Lang Lang --
for galas, corporate events, promotional campaigns and even Christmas
parties. Mind you, these stars were not Universal's clients.


Martin Kozlowski
Under the contracts the world of classical music is used to, the
person who negotiates an artist's services for performances, personal
appearances, endorsements, recording deals and any other activities is
the artist's manager. The historic role of the recording company --
whether Universal or a competitor like Sony Classical or EMI Classics
-- has been to finance recordings and handle manufacturing,
distribution, press and promotion, while retaining copyright in
perpetuity.

These days, the recording piece is a losing proposition. Last year,
Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks point-of-purchase sales of recorded
music in the U.S., reported a 7.2% decline in sales of classical music
(by no means the hardest-hit sector), amounting to a pathetic 18
million units in all formats. The best-selling album of the year was
the pop baritone Josh Groban's "Noel," with 3.7 million units sold.
Irony of ironies, it counted as classical. (Sure, and "Dancing With
the Stars" is the Bolshoi Ballet.) But then, not one of the 10 top-
selling "classical" albums would pass muster with the Bach-to-Boulez
crowd. Mr. Groban has three spots on the list, as does Il Divo; Andrea
Bocelli has two, with one slot each left over for Paul Potts and the
lullaby compilation "Baby Einstein." To put all this in perspective,
Il Divo's 10th-place Christmas album sold just 172,000 units.

No wonder, then, if Universal wants in on more lucrative aspects of
the industry that have nothing whatever to do with recordings per se.
Predictably, artists' managers were incensed, none more so than
Jeffrey D. Vanderveen, director of the Vocal Division of IMG Artists,
and architect of the dazzling career of the Russian soprano Anna
Netrebko, a rare classical artist with a glimmer of rock-star allure.
Her opera galas (undiluted by pop and light classics) sell out arenas
in Germany and Austria the way the Three Tenors used to all over the
world.

Mr. Vanderveen lost no time firing off ferocious emails, with prompt
backup from the IMGA legal department, and Universal ceased and
desisted for a time. Last week, however, the company announced the
creation of Universal Music Classical Artists Management and
Production, a new division designed to provide management services for
prominent classical musicians and to produce live events for them.
Managing director of the enterprise: Mr. Vanderveen, with his golden
girl Ms. Netrebko in tow.

Understandably, Mr. Vanderveen's former employer is going after him in
civil court for conspiracy and breach of contract. His new boss,
Christopher Roberts -- president of Universal Music Group
International, Classics & Jazz -- is also named in the complaint.
(Neither would comment for this article.) In prose to delight readers
of Dickens, IMGA alleges a "brazen" conspiracy by Mr. Roberts, Mr.
Vanderveen and others "to steal valuable assets of IMGA, including a
number of high profile music clients, and to form a new venture that
would compete directly with IMGA in the arts management business."
Clandestine meetings, breaches of confidentiality, fiduciary monkey
business: It's all spelled out in documents that will be hard to
explain away.

A tempest in a tea cup, some will say. A manager has moved from one
agency to another. So what? "It happens all the time," says Barrett
Wissman, the chairman and owner of IMGA , and Mr. Vanderveen's former
boss. "But here much more is at stake. The suit is about huge
conflicts of interest. Who will protect the artist? No one is talking
about that. And many of the artists don't even see what's coming."

Mr. Wissman conjures up scenarios of junior Artur Rubinsteins and
Renata Tebaldis suckered into indentured servitude for the sake of a
coveted recording contract with a major label. You want to sing
Schubert in Salzburg? Too bad, this is business. It's show tunes at
the Garden for you. For an analogy, think back to Hollywood in the
days of the almighty studios, when the moguls owned stars virtually
body and soul.

But the contemporary world of pop music may offer a more pertinent
analogy. In the January issue of Wired magazine, the multitalented
David Byrne -- ex of Talking Heads -- discussed six business models,
analyzing how each one affects artistic control. Of particular
interest in this context was the "360," or equity, deal, covering the
full circle of business opportunities -- "the T-shirts, the records,
the concerts, the videos, the BBQ sauce." Under this scenario, "you
can achieve wide saturation and sales, boosted by a hardworking
machine that stands to benefit from everything you do. The artist
becomes a brand, owned and operated by the label."

Madonna recently accepted a $120 million deal from Live Nation in a
360. Presumably she has the clout to make it work in her favor, but
Mr. Byrne is not so sure. "As a general rule," he writes, "as the cash
comes in, creative control goes out. The equity partner simply has too
much at stake."

Now Universal appears to be betting that classical talent can and
should be branded the same way as Madonna. Though some artists might
be scared off by Mr. Byrne's caveat, Ms. Netrebko is not. "Jeffrey
Vanderveen has cared for me like a baby for 10 years," she says. "He
knows better what to do than me. He'll still be working for me the
same as before."

Perhaps, but at Universal he serves a second master. The Norwegian
pianist Leif Ove Andsnes, wants an ally who answers only to him. "The
recording company has to think commercially," he says. "That's the
nature of their enterprise. As an artist, I need room to think
completely differently, to think about which projects are artistically
interesting and only that, and then to see if we can sell them."

The disagreements are never-ending, and recording executives are not
the only ones who may think an artist's ideas too esoteric. Lately,
Mr. Andsnes had to battle presenters in Paris who thought Debussy
piano pieces too recherché for the French. How much harder it would
have been had his manager -- who is paid to represent his point of
view -- been a paid operative of his record label as well, working
hand in glove with the impresario. Here we touch the crux of the
matter: Under such circumstances, manager and impresario would be
united in the common interest of maximizing profits for themselves
rather than for the artist. And the artist's creative agenda would
have no true defender at all.

During intermission at the Metropolitan Opera, a competitor of Mr.
Wissman's explained some of the basics, on condition of anonymity.
"Say I manage Diana Damrau," he said, referring to the diva of the
evening. "As her manager, my interest is to maximize her fee, and thus
my commission. But if I'm presenting her and selling tickets, my
interest is to reduce her fee to zero or even to get her to pay me for
the privilege of singing, and thus to maximize my take at the box
office." By the lights of a leading tycoon in the business, who
likewise insisted on anonymity, this exegesis is naïve. "Where there's
transparency," he said, "there's no conflict of interest."

But transparency cannot be taken for granted. Another ranking artists
manager tells of an impresario who brokered a tour involving one of
his clients and an orchestra, both under exclusive contract to the
same label. Harping on the "family tie," the impresario wheedled the
soloist into a bargain fee, then turned around and marketed the
package behind the backs of manager and artist at a hefty premium,
which he kept for himself.

This is the kind of abuse Mr. Wissman of IMGA foresees much more of,
and his defense of the artists' due is no pose. Variously identified
in the media as a financier, philanthropist and venture capitalist, he
is also a trained concert pianist, even if his business interests
seldom leave him time to play in public. What drives his lawsuit is a
principle he regards as the cornerstone of his profession. "The real
value in this industry," he insists, "lies with the artist and
intellectual property."

Like Mr. Wissman, Matthew A. Epstein, vice president and director of
CAMI Vocal, a division of Columbia Artists Management Inc., sees
serious problems with Universal's new model. "It is worrisome," he
says, "for presenters and management to be the same. Managers always
think they're the artist. They think they own the artist, which they
don't. They work for the artist. The artist has free choice. The
artist can leave. The commercial interests want the stadium
appearances, the glamour. They don't want the artist to do what the
artist does." At the same time, Mr. Epstein cannot help conceding that
the music industry is evolving at mach speed -- with recording
companies in the position of the dinosaurs at the end of the
Cretaceous. "The problem for the record companies is that soon there
will be nothing tangible to buy any more. The record companies can't
be real record companies any more. That's the real story here."

What lies ahead? "In the future, music may be distributed by iTunes or
by Universal," Mr. Wissman acknowledges. "But no matter what happens,
artists will still need managers who negotiate their side of the
equation."

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