Like a panel of elementary-school teachers, music critics weren’t mad—just disappointed yesterday. That was when the Staatsoper Unter den Linden announced that conductor Christian Thielemann would replace Daniel Barenboim as music director starting with the 2024-25 season. Stern and badly-spelled I expected better of yous rang out across the land, directed at the city’s center-right […]
Tag: Conductors
Posted inEssay
First Canceled, then Celebrated
On May 2, 2023, Valery Gergiev turned 70. One week later, Russia celebrated Victory Day—a Soviet holdover holiday commemorating the country’s 1945 victory over National Socialism. Gergiev spent that day leading the Mariinsky Orchestra in the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, closing out the 22nd annual Moscow Easter Festival—a marathon of concerts (often two […]
Posted inBreaking
Nonsense
I don’t know what’s more unforgivable: that conductor and long-serving Bard president Leon Botstein accepted money from Jeffrey Epstein, or that he put me in the position of agreeing with American conservative outrage-monger Dinesh D’Souza. “He is ideologically unpredictable, even eccentric,” D’Souza was quoted as saying of Botstein in a 1992 New York Times profile […]
Posted inInterview
The Process of Enrichment
On April 22, Kent Nagano will bring his Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra to Carnegie Hall for a performance of Beethoven, Brahms, and a new work by composer Sean Shepherd, “On a Clear Day” (featuring cellist Jan Vogler and an international youth choir and set to poetry by writer Ulla Hahn). I spoke with Nagano recently […]
Posted inInterview
The End of a Voyage
In his long career, Riccardo Muti, 81, has led top orchestras and run major opera houses; for a brief moment about a decade ago, there were rumors he would become Italy’s ceremonial head of state. Muti’s fierce stare is imposing and inspirational—he’s an Italian conductor out of central casting, but with better hair than Arturo […]
Posted inInterview
Places of Refuge
Before February 24, 2022, Serhiy Lykhomanenko was the conductor of the MASO “Slobozhansky” Symphony Orchestra in Kharkiv and the Eclectic Sound Orchestra in Kyiv. Now, he is the Head of Public Relations for the Fifth Assault Regiment of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. “At the moment, we’re at the epicenter of the battles for the […]
Posted inInterview
Pain and Transfiguration
Often the most interesting nuggets of interviews arrive when questioning dissolves into chatting. “Sorry, that previous answer was a bit wishy-washy,” Robin Ticciati says on reflection: Following the tenor David Butt Philip’s recent Times of London interview, where he advised young UK singers to head abroad for the betterment of their careers post-Brexit, I’d asked […]
Posted inBreaking
In Safe Hands
It’s still early in February, but classical music has already seen two major conducting appointments this month. On February 1, Israeli conductor Lahav Shani signed a contract to become the new music director of the Munich Philharmonic from the 2026-27 season, replacing Putin cheerleader Valery Gergiev. On Tuesday, the New York Philharmonic announced that Gustavo […]
Posted inInterview
The Constraints of the Present
Since founding the early music ensemble Le Poème Harmonique in 1997, Vincent Dumestre has brought Palmeritan puppeteers to perform a forgotten opera about the mad Roman emperor Caligula; collaborated with circus players on 17th-century church music; and invited a diverse array of contemporary theater directors and choreographers to stage, among other things, a Spanish Baroque […]
Posted inBreaking
After Barenboim
Every era has to end. Except, so it seemed, the Daniel Barenboim Era at the Berlin Staatsoper. His legacy for the musical life of Berlin is so monumental precisely because it extends far past the city’s musical life. Instead of merely administering his legacy, the Staatsoper needs a fresh start. When Daniel Barenboim signed his […]