Un grand chef d’orchestre is 90 today
mainGeorges Pretre made his conducting debut at the Opéra de Marseilles in 1946, at the Lyric Opera in 1959, at Covent Garden in 1961.
He was briefly music director of the Paris Opéra (1970-71) and the Vienna Symphony (1986-91), but mostly he was just happy conducting around.
Bon anniversaire, Maitre!
No time to rest. In October, he will conduct both the Vienna Symphony and the Philharmonic.
And he’s never conducted at the Proms! Next year BBC: 3 x 91 yr olds. Marriner, Prêtre and Skrowaczewski.
A centenarian cannot be too far off. There are several thousand now in the UK alone. But alas few if any are conductors.
Bravo, Maestro Pretre! And happy birthday from a long-time record-collecting fan…..
Unfortunately, I’ve never had the chance to hear you “live” in concert. When are you next coming to San Francisco?
I’d love to see him conduct live as well, but I think there’s absolutely no chance that he’ll ever come to Los Angeles (we do get to see a lot of the second and third rate sticks with the LA Phil). So Pretre will have to join Harnoncourt and Ozawa in the “conductors I will never get to see in a concert hall” group — along will people who have sadly passed like Sir Colin Davis, Abbado, Karajan, Bernstein, and Solti.
Not ONE French news-magazine, newspaper not even on their websites reported Maître PRETRE’s birthday.
He led a memorable performance in Philadelphia. I can’t believe they are still hiring morons to film concerts.