The Met shared sitzprobe pictures of Keri-Lynn Wilson conducting rehearsals for the upcoming Lady Macbert of Mtsensk.
Not long after, it took most of them down.
Slippedisc readers captured a few of those remaining.
We hear that Stephen Rose, former head of…
The steady departure of cherished professors at the…
The Finnish music world is in mourning for…
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In Chicago, the Godfather’s son in law, David Fray, is invited over the years as piano soloist, whilst the concertmaster’s daughter wins the viola audition, and a pupil of Woodhams, a Godfather’s good buddy, wins the oboe audition.
All of this as the institution retains special staff to make sure the Godfather has a very, very good time both pre and post rehearsals.
Chicago is in a different league.
I don’t know about the soloist, but the CSO audition committee isn’t going to have new personnel imposed on them. Those folks surely won auditions fair and square.
And Keri-Lynn Wilson may not be a super-A-lister in the conducting world, but she’s been working steadily for a long time. Having her at the MET isn’t so out of line.
Well, David Fray is a very good pianist. I think we can differentiate when talented people work with talented people they’re related to (Muti-Fray) from when people work with less talented people they’re related to (Netrebko-Eyvasov). I don’t particularly love Gelb’s hiring his wife, but it’s hard to dispute the fact that if she were to make a Met debut that this piece wouldn’t make sense. She has conducted it numerous times, including a new production of the earlier version at the Bolshoi years ago.
I agree with you, talented people who are related could work together, and Fray is a good pianist, I just don’t follow who the second talented person is.
Godfather? I didn’t realize wop-bashing was still a thing. Chicagorat, you are a repulsive bigot. Lebrecht, would this comment have seen the light of day had this miserable loser directed an anitisemitic slur at Gelb? Let’s see if my comment makes it past your censors.
Italian journalists have widely reported that Muti labeled Maestro Myung-whun Chung “il cinese”. I guess he is a repulsive bigot, then?
Paracelsus, I commented on the bigotry of Chicagorat (and its implicit acceptance by the powers that be on this site) not on Muti’s unimpeachable kindness and moral rectitude. You make the childish error of imagining that the one slur somehow cancels out the other, like the snot-faced five year old in the school yard caught misbehaving who cries “but what about, what about…” in the vain hope of exonerating himself.
Godfather is not a racial slur. It is the title of a famous book and an even more famous movie. Don’t have such a thin skin and stop whining.
Now, that’s just too stupid to dignify with a response. Ciao, stronzo. La commedia è finita.
And here we go! At least one Muti-bashing per post!
Here’s another: Muti destroyed the legendary Philadelphia Orchestra.
I’m not sure I understand what issues can be taken from still photos of a conductor no matter how good or bad he/she is.
It purportedly displays nepotism, which is considered an issue.
She is a really good conductor in her own right, witness her recent Prom concert (the Brahms was stunning) and an ENO Fanciulla del West a few years ago. NOT just the boss’s wife. Misogyny has no place on your website in this day and age
Misogyny is “appropriate” here on SlippeDisc if it provides an opening for bashing Peter Gelb.
I worked with her a couple of times. She comes to work well prepared. Her technique is good. The one criticism I would make is that she doesn’t know how to establish a good working relationship with the orchestra. I always got the feeling that she felt uncomfortable on the podium. There always seemed to be a big distance between her and the orchestra instead of a collaboration.
Went to school with her and have also played under her several times. Since she was a tall, attractive blonde back in the day, I always got the impression that she was dealing with us normies as if we were “peasants” and that she would only treat the “superstars” of classical music as equals. I don’t remember ever signing up for that but many people there had that attitude, not just her. The string players in particular were notorious for treating the rest of us like stir fried sh**.
Nepotism is as old as mankind itself.
Peter Gelb has run the Met since 2006. His wife is an established, successful conductor world-wide. So he has waited 16 years to invite her — very discreet and correct, I would say. Where is the problem?
It is always a problem, and for good reasons against corporate rules most places, to have working collaborations with their intrinsic dependencies with spouses and other close relatives. It is all fine as long the seas are calm, but becomes quickly a very messy situation, once there are potential issues to resolve.
It surprises me the Met has no such code of conduct.
As if the MET ever had a code of ‘conduct’ eg Levine
He may have been trash as a human but he was an excellent conductor for most of his years. Better than the one leading today.
I saw her conduct a double-bill of Schicchi and Sortilege at Juilliard a few years ago. She was first-rate.
It seens to be she is a very competent conductor, and from all Gelb’s actions, this seems little controversial. It is only amazing that he managed to be married to such an amazing conductor.
And Detroit Opera just accepted the Melanie Spector, the daughter of Susan Spector, an oboe player in the Met Orchestra into their young artist program.
She’s actually very good.
And God’ll get you if ANYONE dares mention Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge.
This has nothing to do with her abilities, but the fact that she is the boss of a Not for Profit’s wife. If she wanted to conduct at the MET, she should have waited until after her lackluster husband was out of his current position. It is absolutely wrong and in violation of New York State law.