Is there any way to come back after hitting a colleague? Conductor John Eliot Gardiner hopes so.

“No reason at all,” Sir John Eliot Gardiner repeated softly. Yes, it was 102 degrees in the south of France. Yes, there was no air conditioning backstage. Yes, the opera—Berlioz’s drama about the Trojan War—was difficult with the best acoustics, which these were not. And yes, there was the question of whether the concert should go on at all.

But the performance went well. It was only at the end that the scandal broke. The audience did not stand and applaud. Bassist William Thomas had taken the stage from the other side. Gardiner—by this time “very dehydrated”—“made a rude, serious mistake. I lost my temper. I did something that is truly unforgivable for a conductor.” He hit the soloist.

“I didn’t hit him too hard, but I still handcuffed or hit a young singer.” He presented his version of the encounter to me, raising his palm to his cheek. It wasn’t a punch, more like a slap. Was it enough to ruin Gardiner’s career?

Gardiner is one of the great living figures of English classical music. Three months before the August 2023 incident—a date that is “engraved” in his mind—he conducted much of the great music at the coronation of his friend, King Charles. After the incident in France, all of his performances with the Monteverdi Choir & Orchestra were canceled. He entered the purgatory of public cancellation.

His case illustrates a dilemma that society has yet to answer clearly: should there be a way back for stars (usually men) raised in another era who violate the morals of this one? Should we forgive the unforgivable, or draw a final line? British TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson was fired from the BBC after punching a producer. He then went on to star on Amazon Prime Video.

Like Clarkson, Gardeners has a record of misconduct — yelling at musicians. But he founded the Monteverdi Choir 60 years ago, as a brilliant student at King’s College, Cambridge. He’s looking forward to a comeback.

Instead, he has not performed for 11 months. Last week, he received a call from Monteverdi’s chair, telling him his time was up. Gardiner’s agent issued a statement in which the conductor said he had “decided to resign.” Even before I met Gardiner at his farmhouse in Dorset, I knew this was an unconvincing explanation.

The elegantly renovated barns where he lives with his 42-year-old partner, harpist Gwyneth Wentink, are a reminder that his punishment is not total. Gardiner is unlike the other 81-year-olds pushed aside this month: energetically, he is closer to Kamala Harris than US President Joe Biden. “I don’t feel ready to retire in any sense,” he tells me in his office. He is tall, mild-mannered, and welcoming: charm has always been part of the man.

Repentance is necessary for redemption. This is Gardiner’s first interview since the incident. He gets it right — mostly. “I need to sort this out. This is part of a pattern… I’m incredibly grateful for this time away… I take responsibility for what happened… There’s no excuse. It may be provocative, but it’s not an excuse.” Can a musician’s inattention and resistance to being yelled at be considered provocative?

He cites “three or four types of therapy,” including cognitive behavioral therapy, which is “extremely helpful,” and leadership coaching “from someone who’s done this with industry tycoons, politicians, CEOs.” He practices yoga, as he has since the 1990s, and mindfulness.

“I’ve changed. I feel like I’ve really crossed a Rubicon in the past year… I’ve got techniques in place that will protect me from any…” He breaks off. At a comeback concert in France this month, with a different orchestra, “it was a relief to get back to making music and to realize that, even with the intensity of the training, I was still in control.”

But can he prove he will continue to control the situation?

Gardiner grew up “in a very, very different environment, where criticism and even bullying were everywhere”. He was bullied at boarding school. Later, he was taught music by the legendary Nadia Boulanger, “the gentle tyrant”. He recalls an assignment in which she forced him to compose a piece of music on stage, saying: “He suffered, he must suffer.” He still respected her: “I owe you a great debt of gratitude for subjecting me to such strict discipline.”

Boulanger’s example made him see intelligence and bullying as two sides of the same coin. “I swore to myself that I would never do that. But I was so much a product of that culture that I couldn’t escape it for years. There was always a tendency to lose my temper, and I immediately regretted it when it happened.” I note that language is separate.

“I think there has to be a certain level of forgiveness and tolerance,” he said, referring to mistakes “in the pursuit of perfection.”

It took him a while to accept that “musicians don’t respond well to fear.” Had he ever hit a musician before last August? In 2014, he “pushed a musician who was aggressive toward me away. But never handcuffed anyone.”

I came across something else when I asked Gardiner what advice he would give to a young person dealing with anger. “My advice to a young conductor: recognise the fact that musicians are not naturally hostile to you… Don’t immediately imagine that they are hostile or hostile to you.” Did he actually imagine that musicians were against him? “As a trainee conductor, I certainly felt that.”

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When the Financial Times asked Gardiner about his reputation for rudeness in a 2010 interview, he answered: “I don’t think I was as cruel as you heard.” Is he now just regretting being caught?

He claimed that, even before the slap, he had discussed anger management “with my therapist” and with his family. “I wish I had [had professional help]because it was an obvious problem that would come up at some point.” (He has been in marriage counseling; he has been married and separated three times.)

“Why didn’t I do this a long time ago?” he asks. He doesn’t give a direct answer. The closest answer is his “crazy” schedule. He owns an organic farm and a forest. He has written a biography of Bach and is working on another about 17th-century celebrities. Both farming and classical music are forms of management, he explains.

In the 48 hours before last year’s coronation, he conducted a concert in Amsterdam, flew back to England by private jet to rehearse at Westminster Abbey, then returned to Amsterdam for another concert, then flew back to London for the main ceremony. “It’s been like that all year.”

Before the infamous concert in August, he told French television: “I brought this whole damn thing… All this sounds like an excuse but it’s not.”

Still, “the feedback I get from musicians is that they feel I’ve improved a lot — less hostile and unhelpful criticism, and less temporary loss of composure.”

A man named Andrew Richards recalled Gardiner telling him in 2009: “You’re the worst singer I’ve ever worked with.”

“I don’t see it that way,” Gardiner told me. He acknowledged that some musicians refuse to work with him: “They’ve decided it’s too high a price to pay, too risky, and I respect that. But others, with whom I’ve had disagreements, almost always—or very often—have a good reconciliation.”

If the fight with Thomas had happened years ago, “we would have gone to the pub and sorted it out.” There was talk of financial compensation. Instead, Gardiner said, he offered an apology, but it was not accepted.

Why doesn’t he loosen his schedule? “I have a strong sense of what used to be called a profession. Boulanger used to tell us: every morning when you wake up, look in the mirror, ask yourself, what right do you have to call yourself a musician?” Does she mean work hard? “Relentlessly.”

It’s very difficult to prove that he has changed. “Until you get in the box and work with the team, you can’t prove it. [it]. It was really frustrating.” He wanted to return to Monteverdi, in part to “have a say” in choosing his successor.

He insisted that he had taken the training Monteverdi required, including on subconscious bias. “A lovely blind man came to the farm and exposed the subconscious bias that we all have. I am really grateful that he did.” He complained that the board kept making new demands. “When I felt like I had achieved one goal, there was a new one that I had to go through… I really wanted to go back, but it never seemed to end.”

But others close to the choir have a different version. Monteverdi, a charity managed by a legal duty of care, said its main concern was to uphold “the values ​​of inclusion, equality and respect” and that preventing the recurrence of abuse “remains a priority”. They want him back, but have not seen enough evidence that he has changed.

For example, is it true that Gardiner lobbied European venues to cancel Monteverdi performances if he did not participate? Gardiner admitted that he had asked for the Leipzig performance to be postponed, claiming that it was at the violinist’s request. When pressed, he admitted that the choir “looked at it differently”. I sense there was more to it than that.

There is still disagreement about the incident itself. A representative for Thomas said there was a slap to the face, “followed by a punch to the mouth.” Gardiner said there was “absolutely no” punch. The choir has not released an independent report into his conduct.

Gardiner suggests that his recent soul-searching will influence his conducting, through “a kind of empathy with composers whose music needs addressing.” Since Monteverdi announced his death, “the phone has not stopped texting,” he says, pointing to a cell phone on his desk. (Actually, it’s my phone, but I get the gist.) He has concerts planned in Europe and Asia, and “there are a lot of plans going on in my head.”

His bad year coincided with tough times for his farm. About 170 of his sheep were infected with a mosquito-borne virus that caused them to miscarry. “Luckily, they developed immunity. They were fine the next year.” The same may be true of Gardiner. Society is confused about forgiveness, but it is more straightforward about fame: it often finds room for celebrities.

Even so, I left Dorset with the feeling that Gardiner’s comeback was only halfway done. During our interview, the conductor seemed in control—but, like the Berlioz opera, the performance was not the whole story.