Just in: Big job for Robert Spano
NewsWashington National Opera has announced Robert Spano as its next music director, starting September 2025.
Spano, 61, is already music director of the Fort Worth Symphony and principal conductor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic.
Something will have to give.
Spano replaces Evan Rogister, who has been principal conductir for seven years.
‘Robert Spano is one of the world’s most respected and beloved conductors, and he has a particular talent for leadership as a music director, a position he has held to acclaim several times in the symphony world, but not yet in the opera world,’ said General Director Timothy O’Leary. “When our WNO Orchestra musicians worked with him on Written in Stone—an ambitious, complex, and meaningful project for our company—there was an instant rapport and musical bond. We are thrilled to welcome him to the WNO family.’
O’Leary continued: ‘Francesca Zambello and I are so grateful to Evan Rogister for his extraordinary work and collaboration. He is in high demand at the major houses and festivals of the world.’
Evan Rogister is a wonderful conductor. WNO, decided to go with a big name, even though I’m sure there will be plenty of subscribers who will find Spano inferior to Rogister.
LA Opera still has James Conlon, a more prestigious figure than the MD’s at Chicago, Houston, Dallas, and San Francisco.
The big mistake of the Washington Opera was firing then music director Philippe Auguin after giving them the greatest triumph of its history: the Ring cycle.
The one who should have been fired is clueless Francesca Zambello.
The Ring cycle with the Rhinemaidens as saloon girls and Siegfried and Mime living in a backwoods trailer park. But – musically it was pretty impressive.
Precisely my point.
Zambello’s career should have been over after she allowed the “n” word to be used onstage at the Glimmerglass opera! NOBODY does Showboat with those original lyrics anymore!
I could not more agree and very loudly so, like from the rooftops. Evan Rogister got promoted very quickly, as a neophyte, and probably up until now has not amounted to much more, and Spano’s work tends to be sterile, and sometimes less than that, but these two are willing to kiss ass, such as Zambello would require, and something Phillipe Auguin, who I have heard do a fine Frau ohne schatten from the Met, equally fine Doktor Faust, the opera by Busoni, and also a very fine Madama Butterfly, I think, from the Met.
James Conlon can’t hold Robert Spano’s water bottle. Not even close to the same league. Good grief.
Washington National Opera offers two — repeat, two — repertory operas in its 2023-24 season.
It was a healthier company when it was plain “Washington Opera” and performed at Lisner Auditorium on the GW campus. At least then there was growth ahead and enthusiasm. Today its fancy JFK home is hijacked mostly for Broadway musicals.
It’s been around 50 years since the Washington Opera (now the Washington National Opera) counted Lisner as its home. There was a GREAT time of health under the leadership of Martin Feinstein….many wonderful artists and great productions. Things did change when the Domingo era arrived…and not all of the changes were bad. I can think of many great productions…including a truly fine “Parsifal”. Lots of good stuff at the KC as well as in Constitution Hall when they were on hiatus during KC renovations…that was where the highly successful Ring cycle was first given birth. And wow…those Rings 8 years ago were triumphs with Auguin. Since then, however, I’d agree that things have not been the same. The company had moved up a few levels in notariety and prestige but then wasted that momentum on some contemporary operas that did not sell well. Things have not gone well ever since…and, of course, Covid played its ugly hand. The KC, itself, doesn’t help things with all their “requirements”. But there has been some great opera during these many decades.
That’s right. I heard ten productions there in the 90s. At that time, long after Lisner, we could count on 6 or 7 productions a season.
David Rubenstein, chairman now for 14 years, deserves the blame for the decline. More than anyone else, he has controlled the shift in resources.
What has been needed, what is always needed, is advocacy for the art-forms. They don’t take care of themselves. Board members should be fanatical about them. They should know the repertory and see the need to serve it. Otherwise you have a takeover by commercial interests, betraying the founders.
Washington always had commercial theatres for profitable “shows.” Ask Mrs Lincoln. But that was not the reason the Kennedy Center was built or why it enjoys its unique legal status.
So I disagree strongly with Rubenstein’s re-purposing. And it is particularly depressing given the parallel, if unrelated, collapse in New York.
WNO is anything but “National” now; less was more. It is rather a lost department in a $500-million bureaucracy.
The problem is not that WNO did contemporary operas; every company should do them, and yes, one can expect for them not to sell very well. The issue is their choice of contemporary works.
The other issue is the same as the Met: the cast and the abundance of Eurotrash stagings.
Bob Spano is simply great. One of my top five musical experiences is his conducting the anthem when brooklyn opened up in october of 2001… it shattered the hall. one could hardly play. passionate guy and such fun…go bob!
In Fall of 2001 every hall in the country was shattered and every musician could hardly play the national anthem no matter who was on the podium.
Please get him out of Fort Worth… His programming for the last season and the upcoming one is abysmal. Primarily music from Old Dead White Male European Composers. Wasted all the groundwork done by prior MD to diversify and engage audiences…
Yes, I’ve always rated him in whatever I’ve heard him do.
An exceptional talent and truly an asset to any orchestra.
And I must disagree that something will have to give.
I had the good fortune and very memorable experience of performing the piano/celesta parts to Bartók’s MSPC and Miraculous Mandarin with Robert Spano while I was a student at the Oberlin Conservatory. I remember him as absolutely indefatigable in rehearsals and performance, and with an incredible level of focus.
I had the pleasure of performing “La Perichole” under his baton at Oberlin. His passion for and investment in the art form is contagious, and he single-handedly changed my attitude about playing in “opera orchestra”(which was previously much-maligned before his arrival).
Spano’s Rhode Island job is intended to be temporary — to last until the orchestra has hired a full-fledged music director.
Any institution would be fortunate to have Mo. Spano. He’s indefatigable, a great musician, a wonderfully collaborative colleague and in opera a brilliant partner.
I played a few times with Mr. Spano.
Disastrous conductor. Highly overrated!!!