Bayreuth renews sub conductor as Nelsons stays away
mainThe Bayreuth Festival has announced that Harmut Haenchen will conduct Parsifal again in 2017. Haenchen was called in at the last minute after Andris Nelsons pulled out for reasons that are sill disputed.
Katharina Wagner was hoping that Nelsons would return next year.
No hope. He has announced a four-week commitment to Tanglewood next summer, which rules him out of Bayreuth.
UPDATE: Here’s what he told the Tanglewood audience: ‘I am … very excited to announce that I will be leading two opera programs, one of them a complete concert performance of a major work. Though we are still in the process of making final programming decisions for the 2017 Tanglewood season, we look forward to sharing the full season announcement about these and other programs this fall…
‘Tanglewood’s rich 79-year tradition — highlighted each summer by so many significant musicians of the 20th and 21st centuries — is breathtaking in its scope and impact, thanks to its founder Serge Koussevitzky.’
There is hope:
– Bayreuth will have its 2017 Parsifal conducted by a seasoned veteran, who this summer conducted Wagner’s mature work to public acclaim and got positive press reviews.
– Hopefully Nelsons will have more time to fulfill to the best of his abilities his BSO music director duties in Tanglewood, both by conducting the august orchestra in concert and mentoring young talent at the Tanglewood Music Center.
Haenchen is one of the greatest Wagner conductors of the moment. His fluid, chamber music like Parsifal is outstanding. Nect year it will be even better, because he will have the opportunity of complete rehearsals.
Andris Nelsons is a fine conductor and I hope to listen to his Parsifal at some moment. For the moment, I really do not regret to hear Hartmut Haenchen again next year. On the contrary. It is him who should have been asked for the Ring in 2018.
The (for himself NON-)problem with Hartmut Haenchen is the hardworking-Kapellmeiser-image that is projected upon him,
Although it’s a hardworking, intelligent, engaged Maestro, Meister, Magister etc. we are talking about, NOT a yuppie-like, overpaid, dum r.e.m.-f.
I like this, Very much even.