Where Pappano goes next
mainWe’ve been hearing for a while that Sir Antonio Pappano will not conduct Covent Garden into the 2020s. He has been music director for 15 years, is 57 years old and he tells the Times today that it could be time to move on.
But where?
Reports that he is being considered to succeed Kirill Petrenko at Bavarian State Opera have been firmly quashed. Munich’s next music director will be appointed in tandem with whoever succeeds Niklaus Bachler as intendant.
Vienna has a music director vacancy at the state opera, but Pappano is a team player and the incoming intendant, Bogdan Roscic, is not.
There are no obvious vacancies in the US at the moment.
Mortality may create one somewhere but, for the moment, Pappano may choose to relax for a couple of years as a guest conductor while surveying a congested field.
Although he was born in the USA (Bridgeport, Connecticut), Pappano is barely known in the USA and has only occasionally appeared here. Perhaps in the near future Michael Tilson Thomas (age 72, San Francisco Symphony) or Sir Andrew Davis (age 73, Chicago Lyric Opera) may think that it is time to step aside after long tenures.
Actually, he was born in Epping, a town in the English county of Essex.
MTT will leave San Francisco Symphony feet-first.
Dear S.F.: Interested in why you would say that…. any inside info?
Music director vacancy at the Vienna State Opera? They have sometimes gone for years without one.
Should have been appointed MD of the Met instead of this mediocrity Nezet – Whatever !
first you should have Desmarais family listen to your words 😉
You should be so “mediocre.” Musicians in both the MET and Philly orchestras as well as NY and Philly audiences hardly think YNS is a mediocrity. On what planet do you reside?
YNS is definitely a mediocrity, but unlike Levine at his stage, he is not yet a fully defined product in the opera pit. Performances take a while to come into focus, technically and interpretively. I hope he will grow.
I meant definitely NOT a mediocrity! Should have used all capital letters the first time!
Oops.
YNS is definitely NOT a mediocrity, but unlike Levine at his stage, he is not yet a fully defined product in the opera pit. Performances take a while to come into focus, technically and interpretively. I hope he will grow.
Actually, I’ve spoken to several musicians from the Met orchestra whose opinions ranged from “He is OK, but no Jim” to “Disaster in the making !”.
Some sycophants organized this whole “flower shower” thing after The Flying Dutchman, but one of the musicians said to me “I wanted to hurl a brick !”
Opera North?
The SF Opera Music Director job is still open? 🙂 They haven’t replaced Luisotti yet.
I recall being fairly excited about him coming to guest conduct in Philadelphia back when they were searching for a replacement for either Sawallisch or Eschenbach, but that there were reports that some of the musicians didn’t like his personality during rehearsals. He was never invited back.
London Philharmonic Orchestra. Succeeding Jurowski who the band are already tired of. You read it here first.
Pappano is an opera man through and through. I’m sure he enjoys his work at Santa Cecilia and other forays onto the concert podium, but I can’t see him not going for another opera job after ROH.
he’s an okay conductor to me but not in the first league….don’t forget his initial period at CG went rather rough