Welser-Möst Vienna State Opera MD appointment

[toledobass]

I was a little surprised by this and haven't seen anything mentioned on the board yet, so hear is the press release:

For immediate release:

Jun 8, 2007
08:38am EST

Vienna, -- Jun 8, 2007 -- Cleveland Orchestra music director Franz Welser-Möst will become music director of the Vienna State Opera at the start of the 2010-2011 season, even as he continues his duties in Cleveland. His appointment to the venerated Viennese opera house was announced Wednesday in the Austrian capital.

Welser-Most, 46, was tapped for the Vienna post by Dominique Meyer, general director of Paris' Theatre des Champs-Elysees, who will become the Vienna State Opera's intendant (executive and artistic director) at the same time.

Welser-Most's Cleveland contract runs through the 2011-2012 season. Gary Hanson, the orchestra's executive director, confirmed that the Austrian conductor, who is also general music director of Switzerland's Zurich Opera, will hold the Cleveland and Vienna posts concurrently during the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 seasons.

In September 2002, Welser-Möst began his initial five-year tenure with the orchestra and only nine months later his contract was extended through the 2011/12 season. He and the orchestra have close relationships with the Carnegie Hall, New York, the Musikverein, Vienna and enjoy an annual residency at the Lucerne Festival. From January 2007, they will be resident orchestra for three weeks every year at the new Performing Arts Centre in Miami.

In July 2005, Welser-Most was appointed General Musikdirector of the Zurich Opera, where he had previously enjoyed relationships as Music Director from 1995-2002 and Principal Conductor from 2002-2005. During the last ten years, Welser-Most has conducted more than sixty premieres with the Zurich Opera, a House which has recorded more productions for DVD than any other opera house in the world. They perform regularly together in London, Paris Tokyo and other major international cities. Welser-Most also conducts at the Vienna State Opera, where he will undertake a new production of "The Ring" from 2007/08.

Welser-Most made his debut at the Salzburg Festival in 1985 and, further to his London Philharmonic debut in 1986, was the orchestra's Music Director from 1990-1996.

He works with the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony and Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra and has conducted all the major U.S. orchestras.

[knight66]

Interesting news. These people sure plan ahead, I will be retiring around the time he is truly free to devote himself to Vienna.

Mike

[uffeviking]

Did the article mention the controversy over this appointment? I wish I would have kept the article, but actually Neil Shicoff should have been the man, preferred by - and that I don't recall: - was it the Austrian Chancellor or the Mayor or Vienna? But the powers at the VPO asked the politician to kindly mind his own business, or words to that effect! 

[knight66]

Lis, Can you explain a bit more? I only know Neil Shicoff as a tenor, not a conductor.

Mike

[beclemund]

Welser-Möst looks to have found a way to insure quite a volume of "frequent flyer" miles.

[uffeviking]

So do I and a heck of a lot of other people in the opera world! I shall try to find the article, in fact there were more than one protests against Shicoff's appointment.

We do have a GMG member in Vienna and I wish she would keep us informed about what goes on in that town, but evidently she does not concern herself with the news, only with greeting new members!  

[Choo Choo]

I heard Welser-Möst conduct (Mendelssohn & Verdi) in the Musikverein when I was in Vienna before Christmas, and I'm sorry to say, it was not particularly inspiring.  I really do not understand how W-M manages to get these plum appointments one after the other.

[Wendell_E]

Lis, Can you explain a bit more? I only know Neil Shicoff as a tenor, not a conductor.

Mike

He's not a conductor.  He was suggested for the postion of intendant, which was given to Dominique Meyer, not the music direct postion that Welser-Möst is getting.  So it'd be like tenor Edward Johnson, who was the Met's General Manager before Bing.

Here's one article that mentions "Austrian chancellor and opera lover Alfred Gusenbauer"'s support of Schicoff for the postion:

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/story/2007/06/07/vienna-staatsoper-meyer.html

[knight66]

Now I get it, thanks.

Mike

[uffeviking]

Thank you, Wendell! Now I can stop digging through past issues of Der Spiegel to find the real story!