Official: It’s Thielemann
NewsTo no-one’s surprise, Christian Thielemann has been named general music director of the Berlin State Opera on unter den Linden.
‘With him, we are ensuring the highest musical excellence for our city,, said culture senator Joe Cialo.
He succeeds Daniel Barenboim and will maintain a conservative line of programming, along with an authoritarian style of management.
He starts in September 2024, on a five-year contract.
Berliners should thank Chicago. It is Chicago that sealed this deal.
After a few measures of Bruckner last year as a fine sample of the “famous Chicago sound”, the German Maestro realized that no amount of American dollars was worth that excruciating acoustical pain.
He is rumored to have called the Berlin State Opera during the first break of his Chicago rehearsals to drastically reduce his salary ask.
More like as soon as he smelled you in the audience he called the Berlin State during intermission and offered to work for free.
Where does Chicago go from here? I believe there are many conductors auditioning this season.
Well, it can’t go down … 🙁
What utter nonsense. Chicagorat, what are you going to do in your spare time now that Muti is (mostly) gone?
Cobblers!
Just once, could you offer a scintilla of evidence to back up your execrable rants, you repulsive little rodent?
I am greatly looking forward to your visit to Carnegie next week for 2 programs with – er yes, Muti who does Aus Italien rather well…………
23 thumbs down! Wow. Just Wow.
I have heard the CSO live only twice in my life; once in Adelaide with Solti in 1988 and in Vienna with Muti in 2011. Both times I felt the orchestra was absolutely at the top of the tree. One of the greats.
Your ears didn’t deceive you. They still are.
Sigh, such typical low ambition programming from Muti: Pictures at an Exhibition and the 2 “Italian” symphonies from Mendelssohn and Strauss.
Barenboim, for *his* farewell Chicago concerts at Carnegie Hall, to show off what he had accomplished with *his* orchestra, programmed no less than all three “NINTHS”, as in Mahler’s 9th, Bruckner’s 9th, Beethoven’s 9th.
(OK, Barenboim *is* kinda egomaniacal, I mean he did commission a whole new Ring cycle to be performed in a single week for his 80th birthday in Berlin.)
Nonetheless, you’d think after more than a decade at Chicago, Muti would have more to show than yet another fucking performance of Auf Italien by Strauss, a minor pompous work that belongs more in a spaghetti sauce commercial than at Carnegie Hall.
Famous Chicago sound = Notorious Muti sound
He did the same hack job he did in Philadelphia, trying to copy the Vienna Phil sound (which cannot be copied) and achieving only what can be called half assed results, which are touted in America like “the orchestra sounds more European”.
Total garbage.
Cheesesteak hoagie – yikes! The Phillies in the 80s were the best orchestra in North America by a country mile! Astonishing precision, wonderful string tone (not always the Ormandy sound but different for different repertoire) and a brass section that kicked ass! Kaderabek anyone? Magnificent. Characters in that orchestra. Muti never smiled but he delivered very exciting performances. I heard him in London with the Philharmonia as well. There’s no such thing as the “Muti sound” in the sense that there was definitely an “Ormandy sound” or a “Stokowski or Klemperer sound”. There is the composer’s sound………….and if anyone “Europeanized” the CSO sound it was Barenboim who tamed to some extent the “Chicago blare” that Solti loved so much.
Composer sound? so why does Muti’s Brahms sound like Mozart?
It doesn’t.
I felt Muti’s Beethoven tempi were far too slow, but this didn’t detract from the superb sound of the CSO.
Mehta modelled quite successfully the LA Philharmonic sound after the Vienna. No, the LAPO is no clone of the VPO, it has its own sound. But you could see where it came from.
But LA is quite different. It had a large influx of musicians escaping the war and/or the Nazi regime. LA Philharmonic used to have Klemperer as music director and Walter as a frequent guest conductor. There were also many composers who worked in Hollywood for money. They told the local pool of studio musicians how their own music should be played and unsurprisingly what they wanted to hear was not dissimilar to what they used to hear back home. Schoenberg taught at the local universities. So before Mehta went to LA the preferences already skewed that way. Mehta just spelled it out in words.
What a load of bunk.
Philly was in decline by the second half of the 1970s because Ormandy’s ear was no longer as sharp as it once was, and his energy was waining. You can objectively hear this in the recordings — I doubt anyone would disagree that the interpretations and performances were universally superior in the 1950s and 60s CBS recordings vs the 70s RCA.
Muti cleaned up the orchestras and raised the technical standards.
But not the musical standards. He is a technician, not a great interpreter.
Thielemann could do both, Chicago and Berlin, if he wanted to. Just like Barenboim did 1991 to 2006.
You are beating a straw man there.
I have heard Thielemann does not like traveling.
Why would he?
One of the things I’ve been surprised to learn on this website is that absolutely everything pertaining to classical music, no matter who, or where geographically situated, is actually about Chicago. Who knew?
Yes, Chicagorat and CSOA insider have an unbelievable talent to somehow link everything to CSO and Muti. Too bad they don’t write novels, one would think that with their imagination they would be millionaires by now. (Food for thought, Chicagorat?)
Definitely, he was shocked how bad Bruckner can sound!
Oh keep your spite. The Bruckner 8 was pretty spectacular, enjoyed both by the conductor and the orchestra. I highly doubt you could get a better combo to performer this piece in today’s world. It’s not often we see such mutual understanding and respect between the CSO and a guest conductor and mind you Thielemann is not a person who would put on airs, he doesn’t need to. If he didn’t enjoy himself, we’d never see him again given how seldom he comes to the US, but I have it on good authority that he’s coming back next season, which obviously must have been agreed during the time he was here so eat your own words!
I agree with you, the concerts were unforgettable. And you are correct that the organization is still pursuing Thielemann as MD.
The Bruckner 8 was absolutely spectacular! The CSO is a world class orchestra. Theilemann can bring a performance that is otherworldly.
That said, I’m often surprised by the full-blown hate I read in the comments. I do mean “hate.” Some people must be absolutely miserable to write what they do.
Means (at least) one thing: that the orchestra wanted Thielemann and nobody else.
Well the Berlin boy has come home. Now – Mr Thielemann, with the wisdom which hopefully comes with age, make the next years ones of superb music making – which I’ve been fortunate to experience and cheer over the last 25 years – not conflict.
Right on brand for the Staatsoper which sticks to its conservative, traditional, German-centric repertoire, with the Deutsche Oper and the Komische Oper taking care of the more ambitious programming. And with Runnicles leaving, hopefully the Deutsche Oper will move out of the Wagner lane. I think there’s 16 productions of Wagner operas in Berlin this season (1 at the Komische, 10 at the Deutsche Oper, 5 at the Staatsoper), both big houses staging full Rings. While both houses run large repertoires, they’re largely duplicating each other in the Wagner-Strauss lane (16 Wagners; 9 Verdis; French operas: 3), and some variety would be nice. That won’t be Thielemann, of course, so there’s hope the Deutsche Oper will diversify its programming, beyond what they already do.
Well, “Palestrina” might be about the only thing DB didn’t get to, so that’s obvious.
I heard Thielemann conduct Palestrina at the Met with the Covent Garden orchestra back around 1999. It has a wonderful sounding first act but the musical setting of the Congress of the Council of Trent suffers from the Germanic “fear of leaving anything out” to an almost comical and certainly tedious degree!
“Palestrina” is obviously modeled on “Parsifal” — contemplative/meditative acts framing a “worldly” second act — but Wagner in act 2 of “Parsifal” treats us to an enjoyable romp with action, villainy, pretty girls, which makes us ready to accept the slower pace of the rest of the piece. Pfitzner’s second act could have used a lot more of that sort of fun, if only to condemn it.
It’s like football teams, it simply doesn’t matter if the repertoire is duplicated since the audience is devoted only to the Berlin opera house they born with.
Acoustically the best opera house in Germany for Wagner – next to Bayreuth, but there only for “Ring” and “Parsifal”! – is the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Berlin’s State Opera Unter den Linden is much too small a theatre.
Where else was Thielemann supposed to go? Every top post is taken. This was the only position left for a conductor of his caliber and reputation.
Chicago.
She said top posts.
Another glimmering display of speed, leadership and resolve by Jeff Alexander! 😉 You almost, almost had him!
I keep reading of conductors with “an authoritarian style of management” (and conservative programming to boot) yet seem completely powerless vis-à-vis stage directors… I wish conductors like Thielemann and others wielded more that supposed power and authority to rein in the excesses of Regietheater and ensure that the visual aspect of performances reached the same high standards of the musicians involved. Otherwise might just as well do concert versions and call it a day.
Absolutely.
I attend about fifty opera performances in various European countries each year, most of which in Germany, and I can assure you that the dramatic aspect of performances (which you call, tellingly, the visual aspect) reaches great heights. People who still whine about Regietheater only prove they have no clue about theater. Even a reactionary such as Thielemann had no influence whatsoever on productions in Bayreuth, and there’s a reason for that: reactionaries have no alternative because they have no vision of themselves. All they do is whine about the good old days.
“Good old days” which in most cases they never experienced themselves. Regietheater has been around for as long as CT has been an adult. He has no actual reference point in his personal experience.
Reactionaries only exist when there is bad stuff to resist. And there’s plenty of that about.
Can you give an example of an excess that you think should be prohibited, Kyle? And an example of a visual high standard?
If Joe Chialo, the Minister of Culture who is also Black, could appoint Thielemann without any blowback from the left (who was making noise about wanting a Ukrainian woman to be music director), that at least would give cover to the Chicago Symphony to pursue serious discussions with Thielemann.
Look Chicago, your house is half empty not because you don’t play enough Florence Price, it’s because you don’t play enough Wagner.
No, it’s because you still cling to Muti.
From what I personally observed for two concerts and heard from friends for the other two, attendance for the first four concerts of the new season in Chicago this past week was at approximately 95% capacity and the orchestra played beautifully. These false and unsubstantiated claims are utter nonsense.
Unsubstantiated claims suddenly become substantiated as soon as you take a look at the online CSO seating chart for Muti’s upcoming concerts
Look at them the night of the concert. As has become a trend across the country, more and more patrons are purchasing “last minute”. This past weekend was packed. That is indisputable.
I was there on Friday. It was packed. I have friends/colleagues who were there the other nights….all said the same thing.
Or because the house gives away remaining tickets at the last minute to local high schools, colleges, conservatories, either for free or at a steeply discounted price.
They do that in Paris, how many times I’ve been to the Philharmonie and it’s at capacity with rows and rows of teenagers sitting all together with better seats than me? Did they all of a sudden earn a lot of money and decided to spend it at the symphony and hang together on Friday night listening to Messiaen?
What you say about Paris is absolutely true.
No, its because the United States lives in the 21’s century, not in the 19th like large parts of Germany.
It doesn’t matter what you play, the geriatric audience who even knows about Wagner are bedridden at this point.
But before anybody claims this is the end of civilization, I would look at Europe and Germany’s innovation over the past 30 years and wonder where all those big minds and creators went? Germany is laughable when it comes to new, internet-based innovation, and apparently can’t even build cars efficiently anymore. In Energy, lets not even start….
If this is the result of making babies listen to Mozart, I’ll stay with Reggaeton and see them grow to build new multi-billion industries, not struggle to connect to the internet like in most of Berlin.
Enjoy the incoming AFD government…Wagner plays perfectly for what it is to come….
Congratulations for the most utterly nonsensical rant I have read here in a long time. I wish you a wonderful life in the USA version of the 21st century, where every form of culture is totally marginalized.
With the exception of Bernstein, Adams and maybe Glass you never meant anything in the field of classical music, and nowadays your contributions to visual arts and architecture are negligible as well. Hollywood is reduced to superhero franchises, your literature repeats itself both in its storytelling and its moralizing.
You have become an utterly pathetic nation of which a third believes the president stole his election and ten percent believes the planet is run by a gang of murderous pedophiles. The hysterical exceptionalism of the USA finally proves itself correct: not a single Western nation remotely compares to the depth of your intellectual, cultural and moral decline.
As a Brit living in the US I have to agree with you. Good job I live in NY where there is actually culture to be found, but there’s very little anywhere else, though there is NASCAR and UFC…
Then you should know better. Given your praise for orchestras in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Chicago, last two cities also having a number of world class museums, you do know better.
But how about Pittsburgh? Its population of about 303,000 is roughly equal to that of Nottingham, Nantes, and Karlsruhe. Which one of these cities has a world class symphony orchestra? Not the European ones.
Of course, Pittsburgh also has a number of other cultural institutions. There is an opera and a ballet company. Not world class, but they are there. So are touring Broadway shows, though, from what I can tell, the theater scene could be better. But there are a number of museums, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History being world class. And within an hour driving, there are three Frank Lloyd Wright houses including the peerless Fallingwater. Not bad for a depressed industrial steel city.
And same kind of things you can find throughout America. Small cities have Shakespeare festivals (Cedar City UT, anyone?) Closer to where I live, the city of Staunton, VA (population of around 26,000) has the world’s only re-creation of Shakespeare’s indoor theatre, a marvelous Frontier Culture Museum, a Presidential Library, and glass blowing art.
Speaking of glass blowing, one of the best museums of this kind in the world is located in Corning, NY (population: 11,000). Going back to music, you can find a Rossini festival in Knoxville, TN, Bach festivals in Bethlehem PA and Carmel CA, and TX has a great wind and brass band scene. I can go on, but you get it.
Saying that there is NASSCAR and UFC is like saying there is soccer in Nottingham. What else is there, anyway?
Don C you are right about Pittsburgh where my son lives. But the orchestra has survived because of the Heinz family and other big donors (like Cleveland). It sort of makes my point – much bigger US cities don’t have a decent orchestra……. but my point was/is that by and large the US is a lowbrow country where the vast majority don’t have an interest in “culture” compared with Western Europe. Nottingham Forest was a great club in the late 70s and is now finally back in the Premier League. They also have a concert hall.
So Nottingham has a concert hall, but no orchestra? But I thought that, oh, never mind.
In any case, to be continued.
P.S. Nottingham Forest under Brian Clough was one of my favorite teams as a child.
Glass? Hahahahha
All of this coming from someone who defends the Eurotrash abominations that can be regularly seen night after night in the opera houses – and you’re not the only one seeing them.
But back to the real world. Since you mentioned Hollywood, of which I am no fan, take a look at what films are the “sophisticated” krauts are flocking to see: https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2023/?area=DE&ref_=bo_yl_table_1.
And please tell, who is the loser: the one who sells garbage, or the one who buys it?
Wow, there are a lot of valid points here, except:
Barber
Copland
Daugherty
Higdon
Ives
Lieberson
Reich
Rouse
Not to mention the vast contributions of foreign composers who chose to call the US home, including some who might never have been noticed, had it not been for the championship of US orchestras.
Come on, most of these composers are the equivalent of a, say Wolfgang Fortner or Harald Genzmer in Germany, or of a Granville Bantock and Alan Rawsthorne in England. In standing, not in style, obviously: important for a vibrant musical life in their respective countries, but perhaps not major international figures.
Even Copland, Barber, and Ives have more a success d’estime outside US. Reich and the minimalists did however have some influence outside US.
The one obvious name who is missing is Gershwin.
Take the rest of the week off!!
All good! An excellent choice.
Thielemann, we love you !
Absolutely.
Excellent choice. There really is no-one better.
Eight years ago there was a discussion on SD about Thielemann’s support of a racist, xenophobic group called Pegida that might be worth reviewing.
https://slippedisc.com/2015/01/christian-thielemann-we-should-listen-to-pegida-issues/
I think he has become more cautious about his political statements, though I’m not sure his views have changed.
The far-right AfD, which is closely associated with Pegida, is now polling at 19% in Germany. Not sure conservative, Germanocentric authoritarianism is what the country needs right now.
Oh but they got him precisely to play in the inauguration of the new AFD prime minister.
And its not polling at 19%, its at least 25% now.
Now, what will the music programming be in the special “camps” they will create? Mhh Christian must be busy at work right now….
19.9% nationwide. 27.9% in East Germany.
https://dawum.de/AfD/
If AfD and Pegida exist to this degree it’s because there’s room for them on the political spectrum. Merkel and the other enablers should take a long, hard look at themselves, even if they’re all too hubristic to ever recognise the wrongs they’ve committed.
“If AfD and Pegida exist to this degree it’s because there’s room for them on the political spectrum.”
You could have said exactly the same for Hitler and his party in 1932.
This article is not about Thielemann’s ‘support’ of Pegida. He says politicians should listen to Pegida’s concerns but he welcomes the ban on their demonstration. Listening and understanding why there is support for the far right in Germany (or anywhere) is the start of tackling the problem. Classifying anyone who dares to say ‘listen to the argument’ as a supporter of racism and xenophobia is crazy talk.
Anyone who has followed Thielemann’s political commentaries over the years knows that his suggestion that we consider Pegida’s perspectives is likely more than merely suggesting we listen to varying views. People who suggest we consider the views of racists usually have hidden agendas.
If you don’t want the far right – anywhere – don’t instigate wacky, nation-dividing policies which upset large numbers of the people, treating them like fools and idiots. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction; basic physics.
Aren’t all conductors “authoritarian?” I think the title of Music Director implies that. It’s neither a good thing or a bad thing if the music-making is good.
No, in the same way that “government” and “authoritarian” are not the same thing, even though they both entail power over others.
That was the best news I could get. I’ve been following Thielemann in Dresden and Vienna for two years and I feared he could fly Europe, but luckily he’ll stay here. Nevertheless I hope he will conduct in Berlin more than he conducts this season in Dresden. I can’t wait to see his Tristan next January.
Thielemann is the only serious choice. But with Sobotka I hardly give him one year.
Berlin-Wien 2:0
I’m betting Thielemann decided finally on Berlin once it became clear that Chicago was going to give the job to Klaus Mäkelä. Good luck, fellas!
“We never spoke about that sentence again”
“To this day, the malicious rumor persists that Christian Thielemann made anti-Semitic comments about Daniel Barenboim. In an interview with Mathias Döpfner, the designated successor to the master conductor at the State Opera reports surprising facts about how the lie came into the world – and who was behind it.”
Does anyone have a subscription to Welt, it’s behind a paywall, who can tell us what the rest of the article said?
https://www.welt.de/kultur/plus247690938/Christian-Thielemann-Wir-haben-nie-wieder-ueber-diesen-Satz-gesprochen.html
To make the long interview short:
Udo Zimmermann (then artistic director of the Deutsche Oper Berlin) admitted internally during a joint conversation with the Senator for Culture and Thielemann that he had started the rumour that Thielemann had made anti-Semitic remarks about Barenboim. Zimmermann, for his part, was dismissed under other pretexts in order to limit the damage. In the meantime, it has also been established by the courts that the statement attributed to Thielemann did not originate from him, and claiming the opposite is punishable by a fine.
We should not go into this discussion any further. Just talking about it brings Thielemann into connection with things he actually has nothing in common with.
Danke!
Wow! I had no idea there was this entire judicial dimension to this story that cleared up the matter, and yet, the fake news persists to this day, while the true news is not (easily searchable in English) on the internet anywhere.
Thielemann fans ought to be posting the judicial decision on their website.
Lies have a way of festering forever on the internet, and all the major newspapers and journalists, including the New York Times, repeated this rumor in their coverage of Thielemann’s succeeding Barenboim.
As one says in German and in Yiddish:
Schande / Shanda!
I think it should also be noted that Thielemann is rarely invited to work in the USA. His “conservative Prussian authoritarianism” has not been a particularly welcome voice, which probably also affected Chicago’s rejection of him. I think that we are beginning to see a growing gap between the USA and Germany because the interests and cultural values often do not align. Thielemann’s appointment in Berlin seems symbolic of these changes.
The problem is that Thielemann’s troubling comments extend well beyond his libel suit against the politician Wolfgang Girnus. As one Green Party politician put it, Berlin has lost a chance to took toward the future and has instead reverted to Thielemann’s antiquated values of conservative, Prussian authoritarianism.
Everyone knows that if you were to give Thielemann an SS uniform- he’d fit in perfectly- combined with his undeniable ‘right wing’ views expressed so openly over the years for all to see. An adequate & solid in some repertoire- but ‘boring’ conductor in others- he must be delighted to have inherited the State Opera from his old nemesis Barenboim. Whatever one says about DB- he is undoubtedly a consummate musician of genius- whereas CT is just yet another ‘competent’ enough Kapellmeister.