Breaking: British conductor heads Vienna opera
OperaThe Volksoper Wien has announced a successor to its music director Omer Meir Wellber, who will leave at the end of the year ‘for personal reasons’. He will become GMD of Hamburg State Opera in September 2025.
Wellber will hand over the baton in Vienna to his principal guest conductor, Ben Glassberg. He starts on January 1, 2024.
Wellber says: ‘It is wonderful that with Ben Glassberg a new music director is coming to the Volksoper, whom I brought in as a young conducting talent and who has connected so perfectly with the orchestra and the house. I am delighted that Ben Glassberg is taking on the task, and I am sure that he will continue to drive the excellence of the house.’
Glassberg, 29, was previously music director of Glyndebourne Touring Opera.
A MJOR talent. Why didn’t ENO take a chance in him when they could have?!? He could have driven the company to new and wonderful heights…instead they stuck with the plodding Brabbins, and now the company seems doomed..
I know both these conductors professionally , Brabbins is streets ahead of Glassberg both technically and musically , no question.
Have also played with both and agree with Bratsche-Scratcher – H Rosen, your post is ill informed and horribly unfair on Martyn. You really think it’s fair to lay all of ENO’s woes on him???
You might have both played for him, and as an orchestral musician he may have seemed perfectly adequate. As someone who knows and loves opera, he has no clue how to pace an exciting performance of a music drama. Ben on the other hand has it in spades. A manager of a major European opera house has hailed him as the next Simon Rattle..
Glad the we have varied opinions, but an exciting and appropriate conductor at ENO would have done a lot for performances to enticed people to return..Brabbins, as able as he is in your eyes, was not that man
Welber left the BBC Phil abruptly and now the Volksoper. This requires some explanation.
True. However, he is a very good conductor.
I couldn’t agree more. Especially as Welber played a large role in not renewing the contracts of many Volksoper artists. Worse still, he hired a number of very young singers and then departed without working with them or helping them to develop as artists. I’m starting to think that they are lucky.
Glassberg is too inexperienced for this top job.
A few operas with the Glyndebourne Touring lot is hardly enough experience to get such a top job like Vienna already.
Surely there are better and more experienced contenders than Glassberg?
Why didn’t the hugely popular and experienced Grahame Jenkins – a popular choice at the Volksoper for years get it?
Totally overrated as a conductor… he talks the talk but when it comes down to the nuts and bolts of clarity of direction ( which I’d imagine was essential for opera) he fails miserably.
Congratulations, Ben! The “youth-onslaught” in musical director and conductor positions of late is creatively refreshing and definitely rejuvenating! Take that, Sir John, and others of your doddering ilk!!!
Wellber is a strange case, not staying in jobs for long. Still not sure what happened at BBC Phil ?