Word: mehtas
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...years' absence, Bizet's supple shocker returned to the Met in a new production. The Carmen was Grace Bumbry, a Negro mezzo-soprano from St. Louis; her Don Jose was Nicolai Gedda, a Swedish-Russian; the Escamillo was Justino Diaz, a Puerto Rican. The conductor was Zubin Mehta, an Indian from Bombay who now conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic-and who last week touched off a furor by denying that he was the least bit interested in conducting the New York Philharmonic*Yet what the musical performance lacked in authentic accent was balanced by the thoroughly Gallic staging...
BELL TELEPHONE HOUR (NBC, 10-11 p.m.). Donald Voorhees hosts "Zubin Mehta: A Man and His Music," a profile on the life and career of the Los Angeles Philharmonic's brilliant young (30) Indian conductor. In one segment, Mehta will be seen conducting a performance of Verdi's Aida...
...best, had come to Bucharest to play in the triennial Georges Enesco Festival with a repertory of surefire, splashy Russian music. On hand as challenger was the parvenu Los Angeles Philharmonic on a State Department-sponsored visit. To stack the cards even further, festival officials told Conductor Zubin Mehta that he must remove the scheduled Tchaikovsky Fourth from his program; Russian music, Mehta was informed, belonged to Russian orchestras. With concerts by the two ensembles scheduled only 24 hours apart, observers watched for signs of Rumanian cultural partisanship...
...next night the Russians played; there were enough empty spaces in the hall to drive a tractor around in, and the crowd dwindled further at intermission. It wasn't that Conductor Kiril Kondrashin had given a poor concert; it was just that the exuberance of Mehta, his orchestra, and Negro Pianist Andre Watts's performance of a Liszt concerto were a hard act to follow...
Cheers, floral tributes and demands for encores greeted the Angelenos' two concerts, not the least because Mehta had complimented the audiences by conducting one of Enesco's Rumanian Rhapsodies from memory, while Kondrashin had used a printed score. At the top, anyway, the fray was friendly. The two conductors met, joked, and talked about politics. Said the vanquished Kondrashin to the victorious Mehta after the Californians' debut: "Maestro, it was beautiful...