Word: conductor
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Georg Solti, the Paris Opéra's principal guest conductor, led Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. A light had been glaring in his eyes all evening and, leaning away to avoid it, he had already broken two batons. Then, early on in Act III, he stabbed himself in the temple with the point of his third baton. Blood poured down into his right eye, dripping onto the score and music desk. Onstage, Count Almaviva was alone, plotting revenge against his uppity manservant, Figaro. Solti went on beating time with his right hand and sopping...
...many an opera buff the music is all well and good, but what really counts is the thrill of encountering a glamorous big-name conductor-such as Paris' Sir Georg Solti (who will conduct Le Nozze di Figaro and Otello) or La Scala's dashing Claudio Abbado (Macbeth, La Cenerentola, Simon Boccanegra). Or being present when an important artist breaks through into international stardom-as, say, Paris' dulcet-voiced soprano Margaret Price (the Countess in Figaro, Desdemona in Otello) may well do this time. Before La Scala and Paris wind up their two-week stands (Paris will...
...with the writers' workshop for the past 16 years. (In 1969 an opera for which he wrote the libretto, $4000, was staged there.) The novel's cast is composed of a gaggle of graduate students, some local singers and several professionals from the outside. An esteemed Japanese conductor appears on the scene, along with a wisecracking director from Philadelphia. What happens, Short is asked, when such a diverse group comes together? His answer: "They tell lies...
Probably even Stokowski does not know how many hundreds of recordings he has made in the years since, but one thing is certain: no conductor has ever been so active in the studios past the age of 90. Four years ago, Stokowski gave up the leadership of his American Symphony Orchestra in New York and moved once and for all to his native England. "I spend my days studying the scores of the great masters," he says. "Except when I am sleeping, I am thinking of the next time I must conduct great music." Any number of vital, energetic albums...
...when he will be 100. He has already taped some Tchaikovsky for Columbia and an album of his own transcriptions of Bach and Chopin. Last week's session with the National Philharmonic was devoted to Bizet's Carmen Suite. It is a work familiar to both conductor and orchestra, but still excitement ran high. Stokowski's fabled white mane is now a bit thin and shaggy, but the long, tapered hands still work their expressive magic. So does his pinpointing look. "One conducts with or without a baton," he likes...