Word: orchestra
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...hall and theaters, did score some coups, including a dazzling visit by the Berlin Opera in 1975 and a now legendary Fidelio conducted by Leonard Bernstein in 1979. Still, the also-ran image persisted; not even the appointment of the respected cellist Mstislav Rostropovich to head the National Symphony Orchestra in 1977 gave the town's homegrown musical institutions a wider visibility...
...Washington is trying a new approach: star power. This season, two of the classical world's most renowned musicians have been recruited to revive the city's symphony and opera. Leonard Slatkin, the internationally acclaimed conductor of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, has been named to lead the 66-year-old National Symphony, while Placido Domingo, one-third of the international franchise known as the Three Tenors, has become the new artistic director of the 41-year-old Washington Opera. "To have two such major names take up residence raises the level substantially," says Richard Hancock, executive director...
...maestros too. After 17 years as music director in St. Louis, during which he transformed a regional orchestra into one of the finest in the country and established himself as a leading proponent of American music, Slatkin, 52, has gained the bully pulpit he has long both desired and deserved. As for the 56-year-old Domingo, an able conductor and pianist, the move to Washington offers an opportunity to prepare for the future as his singing career winds down over the next seven or eight years. Both men have moved quickly to reinvigorate their companies and to reach...
This play-American attitude is precisely why he was hired. "When we sought a music director for the orchestra, we specifically wanted an American who loved American music, who would support American artists and American composers and musicians," says Lawrence J. Wilker, president of the Kennedy Center. "We think that it is very appropriate having the pre-eminent American conductor be our music director here at the nation's capital of the performing arts...
...maintained his confidence even after a disastrous initial recording session, when Madonna was forced to launch into the show's biggest number, Don't Cry for Me Argentina, backed by an oversize, 84-piece orchestra whose members had never before played together. Lloyd Webber was upset with the musicians, Parker had first-day jitters and Madonna went home in tears. "I was so nervous," she says, "because I knew that Andrew had had reservations about me, and here I'm singing the hardest song in the piece. And all of a sudden there with everybody for the first time...