Pappano at the Met: It’s been 24 years

From today’s New York Times interview with a man who hasn’t a bad word for anyone:

Has your absence as a guest conductor at the Met simply been a case of being too busy?

Well, I didn’t conduct any opera elsewhere either! I take the music directorship job very seriously, in the sense that the idea is to create a musical family, a family in general. With all the competition that there is for people’s attention, for fund-raising, even for survival for classical music institutions, the job has become much more than just conducting.

I had to cancel a Met production way back, and Peter Gelb was very honorable about it, so I felt I needed to pay him back somehow. So many of my colleagues are privileged to work with the chorus and orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera, why not me?

The New York Times writer calls him ‘reliably inspired’, which deserves to be shortlisted for Oxymoron of the Year.