Met Opera hires chorus chief
OperaIt was announced last night that Tilman Michael, of Frankfurt Opera, will succeed the long-serving Donald Palumbo as chorus director of the Metropolitan Opera.
Michael, 49, will migrate to New York at the end of this season. He spent ten summers working in Bayreuth. In 2019 he worked with Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on Shostakovich’s 13th symphony with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Bavarian Radio Symphony chorus. Nézet-Séguin offered him the job last year
Palumbo is retiring after 17 years at the Met.
Wow, fantastic! Bravo Tilman, you were destined for great things when you were assistant in Hamburg and Bayreuth. Congratulations, it couldn’t happen to a nicer or more talented bloke.
“Nicer” will no doubt be welcomed by the Met Chorus.
Well Deserved!!!!!!!!!!
Interesting that they offered him the job last year, when I believe the MET were auditioning chorus masters earlier this year…
‘They” didn’t… YNS did… …. he also offered it to at least 2 others …….. who turned him down – who wants to give up seeing sunlight 6 days a week……
also I’d challenge the BS PR that they are long time collaborators… when? where? YNS calls anyone a “friend” until they displease him then they are toast. Calling someone a “friend” in the music industry can be the kiss of death especially when working with such toxicity as YNS… the dual role he bestows always comes back to bite the recipient when they displease the Emperor with no clothes
The chorus is in excellent shape, and this sounds like a high-quality hire to continue it.
Note that, in keeping with the American custom (necessity?) in which cultural institutions dependent on private fundraising name their facilities, individual spaces within their facilities, and even individual human beings on staff, after wealthy individual donors and/or corporations who receive “naming rights,” he will not just be the Met’s Chorus Director. Officially speaking, he will be the Met’s C. Graham Berwind, III, Chorus Director, hired by the Met’s Jeanette Lerman-Neubauer Music Director, presumably with the approval of the Met’s Maria Manetti Shrem General Manager.
And I write, of course, from The SlippedChat Desktop Computer.
Grange Park Opera runs it a close second, where singers carry sponsors’ names.
Interesting choice, I would have liked to see an Italian chorus director. Italian opera choruses are by far the most difficult to get right and sound right.
Ohhh,really???LOL….
I could name you some Italian chorus masters who would send you screaming to Berlin for succour.
How’s an Italian going to cope with Wagner, Strauss et al? Most likely not as well as a German with Verdi, Puccini and all the rest.
All opera choruses should sound Italian, just as all opera singing should be like belcanto.