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Pierce Conran

Lead cast: Lee Young-ae, Lee Moo-saeng, Hwang Bo-reum-byeol, Kim Young-jae
Latest Nielsen rating: 4.84 per cent
With sharply coiffed hair and a steely gaze, Lee Young-ae steps into the spotlight as the titular character of Maestro: Strings of Truth, brandishing her conductor’s baton as she guides us through a classical-music-themed tale of ambition, woe and forbidden desire.
The immediate comparison that comes to mind is Tár, the Academy Award-nominated film starring Cate Blanchett as a similarly fearsome and respected orchestral conductor, but Maestra: String of Truth was already well into pre-production by the time Todd Fields’ film came out.


Furthermore, the Korean series is an adaptation of a French TV show, Philharmonia.
Lee plays world famous conductor Cha Se-eum, who has soared to the top of a rarefied field that seldom opens its doors to women. She has the chops and charisma to get the job done, but more than that she has the confidence to never back down as she executes her vision.
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Se-eum leads her orchestra in New York, but following a mysterious incident involving her concertmaster, which involves her walking up to him in a shadowy bar, pulling out a gun and spewing out stilted English, she steps down and returns to Korea for the first time in 20 years.
Back in Seoul, she assumes the post of conductor of the struggling Hangang Philharmonic. Although she is welcomed by general manager Jeon Sang-do (Park Ho-san), who desperately needs to increase attendance, she receives a frostier reception from the orchestra members, who had expected someone known to them to step into the vacant post.
The show swiftly introduces us to all these musicians, each character fighting for attention as they all add a line to the conversation. We quickly get a general sense for what their roles in the dynamic are.

There’s the senior concertmaster Park Jae-man (Lee Jung-yeol); Ma Yo-sub (Yang Joon-mo), the unofficial leader and voice of reason; the brilliant young ingénue Lee Luna (Hwang Bo-reum-byeol), who is hated by a veteran trio of gossipy violinists; the kind but duplicitous Lee A-jin (Lee Si-won); and the cocky young player Kim Bong-joo (Jin Ho-eun), to name a few.
The show repeatedly tries to dance around these dozen or so characters in conversational scenes writers and producers have strained to make appear natural. Each character gets a line, but these scenes are unwieldy and even a little exhausting.
Se-eum immediately makes her unwelcome presence felt. Stepping up to the podium two days ahead of time, she swiftly interrupts and corrects the orchestra’s rendition of the Mission: Impossible theme song, which they have curiously decided to play to welcome her.

She incites a full-on revolt when she removes Jae-man, a friend of her respected violin maker father and her former violin teacher, as concertmaster when she perceives a weakness in his ageing fingers.
Worse still, she replaces him with the very junior Luna, who seems shy and reserved on the outside but in whom Se-eum seems to see something beyond musical talent, which she has in spades.
There are, however, two people who seem very happy that Se-eum has returned to Korea. These are her pianist and music professor husband Kim Pil (Kim Young-jae) and the overweening finance mogul Yoo Jeong-jae (Lee Moo-saeng), who she dated in her youth but pretends not to know now.

Jeong-jae wants Se-eum back and will stop at nothing to get her, even buying the Hangang Philharmonic. Pil’s jealousy is quickly stoked, but there’s more than meets the eye to this sweet and caring husband, who has long had to remain in his successful wife’s shadow.
Those expecting a tale of a talented woman duelling with the powers that be in the upper echelons of the patriarchal classical world would do well to revise their expectations. With its abundant melodrama, Maestra: Strings of Truth is closer to The Penthouse than Tár.
However, it does relish in the baroque stylings of its soundtrack, which are reminiscent of Park Chan-wook’s classic Lady Vengeance, which gave Lee one of her most celebrated film roles.

Lee is undoubtedly the chief draw here, throwing herself into her dominant performance as the supercilious Se-eum, who has an unnerving ability to hold sway over a room, no matter how many people in it are against her.
By the close of week one at least one affair has been revealed, but hopefully the show’s tawdrier aspects won’t distract too much from Se-eum’s more compelling battles in the rehearsal room.
Maestra: Strings of Truth is streaming on Disney+.


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Lee Young-ae in a still from “Maestra: Strings of Truth”.

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Hwang Bo-reum-byeol as Lee Luna in a still from “Maestra: Strings of Truth”.

Lee Young-ae as conductor Cha Se-eum and Kim Young-jae as her husband, Kim Pil, in a still from “Maestra: Strings of Truth”.

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Lee Young-ae stars as renowned conductor Cha Se-eum, who leaves New York to return to Korea after a mysterious incident with her orchestra’s concertmaster
In Korea, Cha joins the Hangang Philharmonic and gets a chilly reception from its players. Her actions only add to their distrust of her


Lee Young-ae plays orchestral conductor Cha Se-eum, who leaves New York after an incident with a concertmaster, and takes a job with an orchestra in Korea, whose players give her a chilly reception.
