Word: rudel
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Actually it took five, but promptly at one o'clock Rudel was at the podium raising his baton-or, rather, a thin white knitting needle-to start the Carmen overture. His instructions to the orchestra were brief and to the point: "Trumpets, didn't you notice I slowed down?" Politely but firmly he told an overeager tenor: "Please don't cut off the baritone in mid-phrase." He remained unperturbed when a voice from backstage implored: "Wait, Julius, wait. Don José's costume has just fallen apart." The singer finally appeared onstage clutching uncertainly...
That kind of cool is indispensable for Rudel as he pursues one of the busiest schedules in the music world. After 14 years as director and chief conductor of the New York City Opera, Rudel is now also music director of Washington's new John F. Kennedy Center. As if that were not work enough, he is also consultant to the Wolf Trap Farm summer festival in Vienna, Va., and is music director of both the Cincinnati May Festival and the elegant, intimate Caramoor summer festival in New York's Westchester County...
Economist's Talent. Gray-haired but athletic at 50, Rudel has an uncanny ability to get things done, an economist's talent for budget balancing and a gift for inspiring loyalty in colleagues. As a conductor-the job he likes best-Rudel is almost wholly devoid of showy theatricality; yet his taste, musicianship and sense of rhythm are faultless, and he is at home in an unusually wide variety of styles. Says Soprano Beverly Sills: "I think he is one of the greatest opera conductors in the world...
...Rudel frequently conducts opera six nights in a row, which is a little like pitching six baseball games back to back. "Obviously, there is something driving me," he admits. "I don't know what it is, and I don't want to know." Rudel came to the U.S. in 1938 as a teen-age refugee from Vienna. Studying music on scholarships at settlement schools and later at Manhattan's Mannes College, he supported himself by working part time in a button-dyeing factory. After graduation he became assistant conductor at Mannes at a salary...
...Rudel applied for a job at the New York City Opera in 1943, when the company was still being formed, and worked his way up via rehearsal pianist, coach, scene changer and even chorister when the occasion demanded. He was named director...