Maestro stays: Pappano renews Rome, rules himself out of major reckoning
mainThe Italian and Austrian press are reporting that Sir Antonio Pappano has renewed his contract with the Accademia di Santa Cecilia until 2019. That effectively takes him out of the running for the New York Philharmonic, where he was a frontline contender, and more immediately also for Berlin.
Pappano, 55, has been with the Santa Ceilia since 2005. He is also music director at Covent Garden, a job he spoke of leaving after the Verdi-Wagner-Britten year of 2013, but which he has happily and consistently renewed.
There is presently a rush of conductors who are signalling their availability for major vacancies.
Could still take the Met, if Levine stays for another couple of years.
The Royal Opera has been on a roll ever since the grim days of the Isaacs/Mackintosh/Allen era in the 1990s were finally banished. Why would Pappano wish to leave to take over a Met that is clearly suffering huge financial and management problems, the more so to follow a conductor who has become an icon in that post? He’d get more money for sure, but I can’t believe that would be the primary motivating factor.