Orange County Register

AP Photo/Lelli & Masotti/Teatro alla Scala

It seems that many of us are working too hard these days, especially the rich. Over at Portfolio.com, Felix Salmon in a Market Movers blog item called “The Opportunity Cost of Not Working” holds up none other than the late, great conductor Carlos Kleiber as a business model. Salmon quoth:

“He refuses to be at the beck and call of the record industry or the opera and concert managements who bombard him with offers. Even an admiring Herbert von Karajan himself was unable to tempt Kleiber to take a date with the Berlin Philharmonic, an engagement which any other conductor in the world would have grabbed without a second thought.

The reason, according to Karajan, was that Kleiber does not really enjoy conducting. ‘He tells me, ‘I only conduct when I am hungry.’ And it is true. He has a deep-freeze. He fills it up, and cooks for himself, and when it gets down to a certain level then he thinks, ‘now I might do a concert’. He is like a wolf.’”

Not all of us can live this way, of course. As a music critic it would be my dream. Sit at home and eat stuff out of the freezer and wait for some publication to call begging me to review a concert for a fee of tens of thousands of dollars.

Q: Dudamel at the L.A. Phil?

A: Hmmm, I don’t know. I’ve got plenty of those frozen fries from Trader Joe’s left.

Q: ‘The Fly” at L.A. Opera

A: Not really my thing (didn’t like the movie), and besides, I still have a month’s worth of waffles.

Q: The Pacific Symphony season opener, with organ?

A: You see, I’ve heard them like a gazillion times, not that that’s the deal breaker or anything. But, um, well, I haven’t even cracked the case of Hendrick’s yet.

Then I’d go back to watching my stories and smoking Cubans.

Previously: A critic’s life, or, how it’s not.

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