Breaking: Two music bosses quit Wales on same day

Breaking: Two music bosses quit Wales on same day

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norman lebrecht

May 23, 2019

Leonora Thomson is stepping down after just four years as managing director of Welsh National Opera, it was announced this morning.

It appears she can’t find a way to work with the incoming intendant Aidan Lang, former head of Seattle Opera, and it may be that her job is about to be abolished.

Michael Garvey has also submitted his resignation as director of the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales.

One resignation would be a misfortune. Two looks like a crisis.

 

Comments

  • Elizabeth Owen says:

    Crisis? What crisis? Now you are being silly.

  • John Ramster says:

    ….or a coincidence.

  • Anon says:

    How you love drawing connections where none exist. Especially given you covered separately (this very morning!) Michael Garvey’s new position heading Benedetti’s foundation.

  • Martin says:

    As a Cardiff resident who has long supported both WNO and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales I can say that the loss of both these two hugely able people is a great pity, if not altogether a surprise. Leo Thomson’s role altered irrevocably with the recent appointment of new Artistic Director/Chief Executive Aidan Lang, who soon relpaces the outgoing David Pountney (whose role was simply an artistic one anyway). She has done a great job and we all wish her well.
    Michael Garvey’s departure comes as more of a surprise (they are currently looking for both a Chief Conductor and a Principal Guest Conductor) but his new role heading up the Nicola Benedetti Foundation has all the making of being a challenging and exciting one. Perhaps a few years bound by the sometimes artistically restrictive straight jacket of central BBC policy making was in the end a frustrating one for him. But I am merely speculating. Both individuals I hold in very high regard, as do so many in Wales and across the regions.

  • Cynical Bystander says:

    Never realised that WNO and the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus were part of the same organisation. Whatever the reason for Ms Thomson’s departure I would be interested to know how hers and his are in any way connected and how this can be described as a crisis.

    • Martin says:

      Fact. There is absolutely no connection in any of this, organisations or personnel? Where did you get such an idea. Sheer coincidence, that’s all.

  • M Le Balai says:

    “It appears she can’t find a way to work with the incoming intendant Aidan Lang, former head of Seattle Opera, and it may be that her job is about to be abolished.”

    I think the issue is not that she can’t work with Aidan Lang, but that the board effectively demoted her in appointing him in a position over her – not the job she signed up for 4 years ago when she and David Pountney were both on an equal footing. Therefore, it’s hardly surprising that she does not want to stay.

  • Another Hasbeen says:

    Norman – are you aware of the rather silent disappearance of the WNO ChairMark Molyneux after less than three years in post? The WNO website now lists Martyn Ryan as Interim Chair. One might wonder…

  • Esther Cavett says:

    If we’d like to talk about opera, how about the two staged performances this week at London Royal Festival Hall of Stockhausen’s Donnerstag aus Light. By a young French troupe with the London Sinfonietta.

    A massively appreciative audience both nights. People of all stripes as well, not just the same ole modern music crowd. in the audience. Truly wonderful.

  • Jan Kaznowski says:

    =two staged performances this week at London Royal ==Festival Hall of Stockhausen’s Donnerstag aus Light

    I got into the dress rehearsal. When ROH staged this in the mid-80s, it looked dreadful. All wearing Star Trek type costumes with klunky pretentious stage sets. Laughable really.

    But these young guys at RFH really got it and the staging was wonderful. Apparently the performances went down very well in Paris and Bordeaux.

  • Anonymous says:

    Nick Winter also departed and not noted here. But admins change, and companies change.

  • Jeremy Wardle says:

    ===two staged performances this week at London Royal ==Festival Hall of Stockhausen’s Donnerstag aus Light

    I was there at this tremendous production.
    It’s a shame that SD doesn’t follow this sort of thing

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