Ex-Berlin Phil player is Prague’s new baton
OperaThe Czech National Theatre has started the year by replacing its chief conductor and chorusmaster.
Out goes Andriy Yurkevych, ‘who is leaving the post for personal reasons’. Yurkevych, a Ukrainian, has been in the post for two and a half years.
He is replaced in the podium by Hermann Bäumer, a trombonist with the Berlin Philharmonic before he took up the baton. Bäumer, 60 this month, has been music director in Mainz for the past 12 years.
The new chief chorus master is Zuzana Kadlčíková. She succeeds Adolf Melichar, ‘who will remain at the State Opera as Chorus Master’. All very odd. As so often in Kafka’s Prague, euphemisms are used instead of truth.
The artistic director of the opera is the Norwegian Per Boye Hansen.
Chief artistic director and conductor to be announced shortly.
Fun fact that at this moment his former tenor/bass or wechselposaune position is open in Berlin Phil and application sending time was recently closed. Hopely they will find suitable player to continue his and his successor’s (Thomas Leyendecker) legacy