Gustavo Dudamel: Why I quit Paris Opera
OrchestrasThe conductor was asked a direct question by Le Monde.
He gave a circumlocutory answer:
I had reached a point where I didn’t have the physical time to digest everything that was going on in my professional and personal life. I wasn’t happy, and I think that was the main reason I made the decision I did. The pandemic also changed things for me, fueling the desire to do fewer things, but more intensely. At the end of the day, what do you have left? Family.
Why talk now?
I thought I’d been transparent about my desire to be more present for my family. But my decision gave rise to a great deal of speculation, with some people inventing mysterious hidden reasons. Sometimes in life, you have to make decisions alone that affect a large number of people. I understand that this can be difficult to accept, but I don’t want people to think that it’s just a whim or that I made this decision lightly.
More here.
Dudamel will come back in Paris at the end of the month with… LA Phil. Anyway it was disrespectful for him to don’t do a press conference or a video. It’s not a way to say goodbye. He can’t say that the the French didn’t welcome him. It was more the opposit.
Just not an opera dude.
In his profession, family is often a big problem. Simply that. Because you hardly see them, and you don’t want to see it fall apart because you aren’t there. So why the suspicions? Sometimes there are simple reasons.
Well, he already gave family reasons when he took the job in Paris: he lives in Spain and wanted a job in Europe.
Yes, quite. Also – imagine being a non-French fluent speaker and navigating the pandemic as a Directeur Artistique with that wasp’s nest of bureaucrats…! Just imagine. Who would want to do that. Over Zoom…
He says that the cancellation of the April 2023 tour of the Orchestre de l’Opéra “may well have been the last straw.” There’s the answer. He says, “I had great ambitions for the Orchestre de l’Opéra.”
What is odd is to take the coveted job of head of the world’s oldest opera company, and of course one of its greatest and best funded, and then quit because tour plans for its orchestra are curtailed! It’s quite clear that Gustavo Dudamel will never be much of an opera man.
The Opera de Paris should have ask him to be more clear about his intentions and to be with only one duty as musical director. The fact that he didn’t learn french like Chung in the late 80’s and that he didn’t make records this DG should have be a signe of what happened
When could he have found the time to learn French? He hardly had time to go to the bathroom!
Why major opera houses sometimes hire conductors with limited pit experience is beyond me.
And not just you, I can assure you.
He made a cold calculation: he wasn’t going to accomplish much in Paris (or in opera), he can’t compete with Klaus Makela in Paris, he doesn’t need Paris to sustain his career, he’s got NY for at least 5 years, he can always count on LA, Vienna, Berlin for gigs for the rest of his life, so why bother to invest his time and energy in Paris?
“he can’t compete with Klaus Makela in Paris”
Yes because the stylish Parisians can see immediately Dudamel’s suits are not as fancy as Makela’s.
LOL
I think conductors citing “family” is pretty akin to politicians citing “family.” He really couldn’t imagine the time spent away from his family when he took jobs on two continents?
This isn’t really germane to the article, but as an industry we aren’t doing ourselves favors by continuing the maestro myth and allowing some conductors to hold directorships in 2 and some cases 3 continents.
But ‘family’ is mostly not a top priority in music life. Before you know it, you discover you had been married and somehow procreated. And then you have to begin to adjust.
Beverly Sills, in her autobiography “Bubbles”, says one time she was leaving home for work, her 3 year old daughter ran to hug her: “Goodbye mommy”, then turned to the nanny and said, “No more mommy.” It made her so sad she didn’t want to leave.
Don’t know how old Dudamel’s kids are but it’s hard to juggle family and a professional career.
One of my favorite quips from Yo- Yo Ma on a late night television show is that his son probably thought he was a flight attendant.
P.S., both of his children seem to have turned out more than well.
Just a spoiled boy caprice…why commit in the first place…
Circumlocutory? I don’t know, that seemed pretty straightforward and direct to me.
Dudamel was predetermined to go to the NY Phil and Opera de Paris was only a filler on his biography until the NY job could be announced. He is the next Bernstein. NY is where he belongs now. His family will most likely come too. Here’s an interesting article worth reading that gives more information about Dudamel. https://open.substack.com/pub/johnaxelrod/p/is-gustavo-dudamel-the-next-bernstein?r=3m1of0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Bernstein? You sound like a clueless Gen Z. Dude is not an American and he is not an educator, a composer, or even fluent in English. He’s more interested in furthering his Latin agenda than promoting American (i.e. USA) music.
Some people that things too seriously, this is one of those times.