“If, as rumor has it, conductor Fabio Luisi is poised to succeed the ailing James Levine as music director of the Met, Saturday afternoon’s elegant performance of Ariadne auf Naxos showed he’s the right man for the job.” [New York Post]
This is the end.
James Levine has just canceled all engagements between now and October, except for the two remaining peformances of Die Walküre at the Met May 9 and 14. Fabio Luisi will take over the Carnegie Hall concert with Natalie Dessay on May 16 and Levine’s duties on the Japan tour, conducting Don Carlo and La Bohème.
The statement from the Met, which follows the jump, optimistically predicts that after “taking the summer off to rest and recuperate from his ongoing back condition,” the maestro will return to the podium for the new production of Don Giovanni opening October 13. Read more »
La Cieca (pictured) is going to go out on a limb here, cher public, based on bits and pieces of gossip, a hard fact or two, and her own occasionally flawed powers of ratiocination.
Her prediction: James Levine will retire as Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, effective at the end of the 2011-2012 season.
Further details of this prophetical vision follow the jump. Read more »
Now that the exciting and welcome news about Fabio Luisi‘s new position as Principal Guest Conductor has had a chance to settle a bit, La Cieca would like to quote an old, old, old friend and suggest that “our retrospection shall be all to the future.” Let’s slip into our Zukunftsbrillen after the jump, shall we?
La Cieca’s question here is exactly what we should be expecting Fabio Luisi to do as a “Guest” at the Met over the next few years? Will he get his own projects, or is going be end up relegated to being Jimmy’s standby (Der Levinespringer)?
Fabulous Fabio Luisi (left) has just been named Principal Guest Conductor at the Met, only the second maestro to be so titled in the company’s history. [NY Times]
“Lights are brighter; the elegantly gowned Tosca no longer plops down on a filthy church floor — and police chief Scarpia’s Act 2 hooker four-way stops short of oral action.” [NYP]
Cher Public