THE CASE OF THE FRIGHTENED SYMPHONY

...Her attorney made this point in his summation to the jury: "If Vanessa Redgrave appeared on the stage of Symphony Hall, [the BSO feared] it would be interpreted as an endorsement of her political views about the Middle East and the PLO, an endorsement by the Boston Symphony...

...Stravinsky himself, had he been around, could have told the Orchestra management of the night when Le Sacre du Printemps was hooted at its premiere in Paris...

...Furthermore, as Peter Sellars pointed out, "Across the course of musical 26 / FEBRUARY 1985 history, there is a rich history of disruption...

...His "Who's on First...

...In the private workplace, anyone with a contract to provide labor can now cite the Redgrave case if that work is taken away because of political or other views that have nothing to do with the job...

...My job was saved only because I happened to be shop steward at the time, and the boss had enough trouble with the union without risking the friction that would result from letting a shop steward go...

...Okay, so far as it goes...

...You can't make a distinction between the orchestra acting on its own and the orchestra acting in response to concerns expressed by contributors...

...Though not yet thirty, Sellars reminded the Orchestra's hierarchy of the era of McCarthyite blacklisting...

...There was also a concern among some members of the Boston Symphony about whether they ought to play on the same stage with Redgrave...

...The Boston police commissioner, on the other hand, said he and his officers could handle any disturbance...

...The orchestra is still making the decision...

...column about First Amendment issues appears four times a year...

...And a Jewish member of the Orchestra's board of trustees, fearful of a substantial drop in contributions to the Orchestra from Jews, was sufficiently disturbed to suggest to management that a way be found to get out of the contract with Vanessa Redgrave...

...Not only did it yield to a heckler's veto, but it was quite disingenuous in its costuming of the heckler...

...Recently, however, British actress Vanessa Redgrave has become a source of some hope in these matters to American workers...

...Despite the rather odd distinction-without-a-difference made by the jury, the Boston Symphony has been badly tarnished by this episode...

...As one who writes about civil liberties issues, I often hear from people fired for their political views...

...Those musicians had the right to say "No" on grounds of conscience, and should not have been punished by the Orchestra for refusing to show up for those performances...

...Any way you look at that analysis, it still comes out that the Symphony canceled Redgrave's contract because of her politics...

...And at the trial, testifying for Redgrave, Sellars said that "if the Boston Symphony acts like this, no artist is safe...

...The radio station was not the State...

...Trial testimony revealed that the alleged firestorm of hatred had actually amounted to about four letters and somewhat more than 100 telephone calls...

...A "dangerous precedent" had been set, affecting not only Redgrave but also "artists across the country...

...Artistic freedom and integrity must be guaranteed in a democracy, or politics will have no meaning at all...

...As Daniel Kornstein described that conversation in his summation, Sellars "mentioned what had happened to the Vienna orchestra in 1933 when they wouldn't let a Jewish musician play...

...John Henry Faulk was awarded damages for having been blacklisted, but that was through a libel suit...

...The union would have groused, but this was a private workplace so I had no First Amendment right to my job...

...every generation has to fight the same battle because there is a slippage...

...Before the deed had been done, Peter Sellars tried to remind Symphony officials of their responsibility...

...For the vivid, pivotal role of the narrator in the latter work, the Orchestra hired Vanessa Redgrave, one of the world's most compelling actresses...

...And some years ago, she supported a call by an English national student group for the banning of all Zionist speakers, including artists who give speeches, from British universities...

...When raging citizens can cause the suppression of a performance by resorting to the heckler's veto, the city as a whole announces itself ready to let any infuriated group decide what the rest of the inhabitants are going to hear...

...On the other side, fifty-five equally indignant citizens wrote to protest the banishment of Redgrave...

...Some contract cases did come up during the blacklisting years," Kornstein says, "but the claim that money was due because people had been fired for their political views was dismissed...

...He also talked about an incident in the history of the Symphony itself, the Boston symphony...

...Are we back to guilt by association...

...If you're hired by somebody, does it mean that they endorse your views...

...Redgrave's attorney, Daniel Kornstein, hammered away at this point in his opening and his summation to the jury, and Redgrave won...

...Sure, there might be a disruption, but they knew how to deal with that...

...Nonetheless, the Orchestra insisted that had Vanessa Redgrave been allowed to set foot on its stage, Boston might never have been the same...

...And is it limited to artists...

...Had I not been shop steward, however, the boss would have had his way...

...If there is no contract provision at present, it should be possible in some kinds of work to devise an agreement that protects the worker from political reprisals...

...holding unpopular views...

...When his views did not prevail, Sellars refused to go on with another actress in Redgrave's place...

...Steamfitters, clerks, waitresses, truck drivers, anyone who has earned a paycheck has rendered his or her politics irrelevant—irrelevant, that is, to whether the worker should keep the job...

...Vanessa Redgrave is deeply involved with a small radical party in England that is devoted to workers' causes, it says, but has yet to make the slightest dent in workers' consciousness there...

...There had been a call to the Orchestra from the founder of the Massachusetts chapter of the fearsome Jewish Defense League, an ardent symphony patron...

...That usually means typhoons, strikes, acts of God...

...As the Boston Globe said in an editorial headed Art and Politics, "This tawdry chapter in the Orchestra's history must never be repeated...

...New York theater producer Theodore Mann testified that he had been seriously thinking of hiring Redgrave for the 1983 production of Heartbreak House but decided against it because he thought the threats of an uprising in Boston "would have a negative effect" on box office receipts in New York...

...But if they are in the private work force, not much can be done...

...and if we're not on guard, we can slip too far backwards...

...When the news was released, there were objections from some Symphony patrons and other members of the public...

...It found that the Boston Symphony had surely violated Redgrave's contract, but added that it did not believe the Orchestra had done so in reaction to Redgrave's political views...

...were grounds for its action____" It should be noted that Redgrave herself is a dubious defender of every artist's right to be judged on the basis of work skills, not politics...

...For the first year afterward, she got no work at all...

...The Orchestra did, indeed, decide to break the contract, over the vigorous objections of Peter Sellars, who was to have directed the production...

...The threat to public safety was immense...

...And libel suits in cases of this kind are difficult to pursue because an adroit employer can mask motives for the firing...

...She was awarded $100,000 in damages in addition to the $27,500 she was originally to have received for the performances...

...The Orchestra had decided to climax the celebration of its own centennial season as well as the 100th anniversary of Igor Stravinsky's birth with a gala series of performances, in Boston and New York, of his Symphony of Psalms and Oedipus Rex...

...It applies to all of us...

...Unless they work under a union contract that specifically protects their free speech rights, management can retaliate for political views and activities...

...Only one member actually said he would decline, but suppose there had been more...

...But on the stand he said he had only threatened to set up a picket line—not to boo the performance, or to detonate stink bombs, or to commit violence...

...But this is hardly the first time a vital court victory for freedom of expression has been won by someone who, given the power, would do her own censoring...

...The official reason given for breaking the contract was "causes and circumstances beyond the Orchestra's reasonable control...

...No such phenomena had occurred, but the Orchestra claimed there were so many threats of disruption, mayhem, "violence and bloodshed" from irate citizens that it could not go on with the production...

...And more unions should get an equivalent-of-the-First-Amendment clause in their contracts...

...What was inappropriate, to say the least, was that the Boston Symphony did not simply thank them for their interest and maintain its own integrity...

...As John Reinstein, a staff attorney with the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union, told the Boston Globe, "As far as a performer is concerned, what difference does it make if an orchestra says, 'We don't like your political views and we're canceling' or 'Our contributors don't like your political views and we're canceling...

...Also entirely predictable was the especially intense reaction of some Jews—not Jewish organizations, but individuals...

...Redgrave is an unabashed supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization, so these demands that she be disinvited were not surprising...

...But the potential significance of this case goes beyond art and artists...

...She has, after all, urged British artists to refuse to perform with any official Israeli theater, dance, or musical group...

...The evidence presented in the Redgrave-Boston Symphony trial made a clear and convincing case that the Orchestra had dismissed an artist for reasons that had nothing to do with her artistry...

...Not many unions have such clauses in their contracts...

...There is nothing special about artists in this respect...

...Her performances have rendered her politics irrelevant...

...The jury arrived at its decision in a curious way...

...According to Kornstein, this may be the first time a common-law cause of action—breach of contract—has shown the way to providing First Amendment protection in the private sector...

...At the time of World War I, because [its conductor] was of German ancestry, he was dismissed...

...The money is much less important, except perhaps to Redgrave, than the principle...

...Nor was it inappropriate for some Boston Jews and other citizens to call in protest against the hiring of Redgrave...

...Why should freedom of political expression not also be safe for any worker, not just workers in the arts...

...Clearly, the Symphony was frightened not only of losing ticket sales and contributions, but also of being identified with Redgrave's political stance...

...And [Sellars] told them, 'You don't want to destroy the orchestra, but that's what you're doing.' " In its editorial castigating the Boston Symphony, the Boston Globe celebrated the fact that Redgrave's victory "has reinforced the principle that art must always transcend politics...

...I thought we had climbed out of that abyss some time ago...

...A cancellation under such circumstances, moreover, warns employers in other cities to steer clear of this performer whose mere presence on a press release promises riots...

...As the Boston Globe noted in an editorial, the jury's verdict "thoroughly discredited the Orchestra's assertion that threatening phone calls promising 'bloodshed and violence...

...Does that mean we have to find out what every artist's political views are...

...He said I was a communist...

...If they work for the city, state, or Federal government, they usually can be restored to their jobs with the help of an American Civil Liberties Union affiliate in their area because such workers do have First Amendment rights...

...As an actress, Redgrave has always served her audiences and her colleagues as a consummate professional...

...One point neglected by the press covering the trial, and to some extent by Redgrave's lawyer, is that even if there had been hundreds of threats, including threats of violence, the Boston Symphony Orchestra would still not have been justified in canceling the concerts...

...Her lawsuit against the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which canceled her contract for a set of performances because she is politically controversial, was based squarely on her right not to be fired for Nat Hentoff writes about music every month in The Progressive...

...Yet, by taking on the Boston Symphony Orchestra in an American court, she has forged an important beginning—through good old common law rooted in England—toward the further emancipation of American workers so that they need not fear the consequences of being themselves on their own time...

...The Orchestra didn't care, the jury said in effect, whether Redgrave was pro-PLO or pro-Pinochet: "We feel they canceled because of public reaction to her political views...

...Redgrave testified that her income had fallen significantly since her removal from Oedipus Rex...

...The palpable proof was that I had invited Pete Seeger to appear on one of my programs...

...The story began in 1982...