Conductors- which are your favourite and least favourites conducting Opera?

[yashin]

Start with least favourite - Carlo Rizzi.  Have heard him conduct several Met broadcasts and hated them.  Have been in the opera house on several occasions and thought "oh Sh*t its Rizzi conducting" - he conducts like he is just running through the motions.  He is one of the 'lets get through this as quickly as possible and get going home' kind of conductor (in my opinion)

Another distaster -and a fellow DNO-Netherlands Opera conductor is Ingo Metzmacher.  Now i enjoyed his Wozzeck recording so was looking forward to him taking over at DNO.  How wrong i was.  I can recall his Die Tote Stadt, Wozzeck Lulu to name a few.  I took an instant dislike to the overpowering volume the orchestra made.  It was like they were in competition to drowned out the singers.  I was not suprised to hear that he has stepped down after several more terrible operas performed there.

On record i happen to dislike Solti.  I know he is a favourite of many posters on here.  I can't recall a single Solti recording i have liked.  I dislike his conducting of Salome, Elektra.  A terrible recording of La Boheme with Domingo/Caballe and another of Tosca with Te Kanawa and Aragall (i am ashamed to say).

My preferences would be:

Sinopoli - yes a strange conductor.  It was sad his passing a few years ago.  I love his Elektra and Salome. Not to mention a terrific Butterfly, Nabucco and Manon Lescaut.

Barenboim - no great intro needed here.  Love his Wozzeck and Tristan recordings.  Have not yet heard his Ring cycle.

Kent Nagano - i like his recordings. His Hoffmann, Werter, Billy Budd....and a terrific La Boheme

Fabio Luisi - i enjoy his Nabucco DVD.  Hope to hear more of him

Franz Welser-Most - have many of his DVD recordings.  I enjoy then a lot.

[Mozart]

John Elliot Gardiner and Georg Solti.

[yashin]

Oh Harnoncourt - as much as i hope to like his recordings i just don't.  They all seem so flat.

William Christie- i enjoy many of his opera recordings especially his Giulio Cesare and Magic flute.

Claudio Abaddo - now there is another great conductor.  Listen to his recent Magic flute, or to his Mussorgsky recordings.

[yashin]

John Elliot Gardiner  - i like his Mozart cycle on DVD/Cd -especially the Magic flute.  His Don Giovanni was a little on the fast side but did not lose its clarity like Daniel Hardings recording.

I have the Manon Lescaut from Glyndebourne with J.E.G conducting and its a terrific performance -highly recommended but he seems to be intent on drowning out the singers.  A shame really.

[Mozart]

Claudio Abaddo - now there is another great conductor.  Listen to his recent Magic flute, or to his Mussorgsky recordings.

Yuck!

[val]

Some of my Favourite Opera Conductors:

Tulio Serafin  (Un Ballo in Maschera, Otello, La Bohème)

Joseph Keilberth  (Cardillac, Der Freischütz, Arabella)

Georg Solti  (Siegfried, Don Carlo, Tannhäuser, Aida, Elektra)

Karl Böhm  (Ring, Cosi fan tutte, Wozzeck, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Daphne)

Zubin Mehta  (Il Trovatore, Turandot, La Fanciulla del West)

Rafael Kubelik  (Meistersinger, Oberon, Rigoletto)

Karajan  (Rheingold, Falstaff, Salome)

Colin Davis  (Les Troyens, La Damnation de Faust, Peter Grimes, The Midsummer Marriage)

There are more, but they left only one or two opera recordings (Furtwängler, De Sabata, Knappertsbusch, Kempe, KLemperer, Melik-Pachaev, Khaikine, Chalabala, Beecham). 

[Larry Rinkel]

John Elliot Gardiner and Georg Solti.

Which one is your favorite and which one your least favorite?

[Tancata]

I have two strong favourites - Rene Jacobs and William Christie. They have both done great recordings of Monteverdi and Handel operas, and Jacobs is also great in Mozart.

I don't have any strong dislikes among the opera conductors I've heard.

[springrite]

For the life of me I can not recall the name of the Italian conductor who conducted a San Francisco Opera performance of Tosca that I attended. He seemed to have forgotten that he was conducting an opera! The orchestra was so loud with climaxes which do nlot exist on the score that, at times you have a hard time to hear the singers and, at other times, the orchestral interludes were treated like orchestral bombarstic blasts. At the end, the singers all received standing ovations and loud cheers, while the conductors was booed off the stage when he appeared!

[Todd]

It depends on repertoire of course, since even the best conductors aren't equally good in everything.  Some of my favorites include: Bohm, Abbado, Krauss, Boulez, Keilberth, Kubelik, (Colin) Davis, Mackerras, and Eotvos.

[Mozart]

Which one is your favorite and which one your least favorite?

They are both my favorites, but for different works. The conductors I hate are like...Karl Bohm. Listen to him do Mozart's requiem and it might be your own!

Hmmm Im sure theres more but I can't think of any others right now.

[Don]

They are both my favorites, but for different works. The conductors I hate are like...Karl Bohm. Listen to him do Mozart's requiem and it might be your own!

Yes, Bohm's recording of the Requiem is majestic and I have my very own copy.

[Mozart]

Yes, Bohm's recording of the Requiem is majestic and I have my very own copy.

Not your own copy, your own requiem, it would probably start as someone elses but by the time you go the the Rex Tremendae they would say "ohh the don is dead, just ass him to the service".

[Steve]

They are both my favorites, but for different works. The conductors I hate are like...Karl Bohm. Listen to him do Mozart's requiem and it might be your own!

Hmmm Im sure theres more but I can't think of any others right now.

I'm with Don on this one. Böhm's taken on the Requiem is fantastic. Have you heard his Ring Cycle?

[Mozart]

I'm with Don on this one. Böhm's taken on the Requiem is fantastic. Have you heard his Ring Cycle?

Hahaha are you pulling my leg?

[david johnson]

serafin

dj

[Tsaraslondon]

For Italian opera, Tullio Serafin is definitely a favourite. IMO unjustly overlooked, all his recordings with Callas are superb, whether it be Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini (a live Armida from 1952), Verdi, Mascagni, Leoncavallo or Puccini. His Otello is one of the best, (maybe even the best) in the catalogue. Turning from Solti's bombastic and vulgar conducting of Aida (with one of the best casts on record), to Serafin's is to turn to something that is always at the service of the music and always unobtrusively right. More than ever, one regrets the absence of stereo.

Karajan has admittedly had a few duds, but has remained remarkably consistent over a long period and in a wide variety of music, from operetta (though his Die lustige Witwe is probably a mite too serious), to Verdi, Puccini, Richard Strauss and Wagner. He makes more of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor than almost anyone, and his Falstaff (I was listening to it only yesterday) is one of the great recordings of all time. I am not a great admirer of his Mozart opera recordings, but I do love his Wagner and actually prefer his Ring to Solti's, which I often find overwrought. I have also recently reacquainted myself with his Fidelio, and find it finer than Klemperer's; darker, more dramatic, and ultimately more powerful. The tender moments are also wonderfully realised.

Giulini recorded too few operas, but I would also count him amongst my favourites (Don Giovanni, le Nozze di Figaro, Don Carlo, la Traviata (live with Callas), Rigoletto and Il Trovatore). His Falstaff, painstakingly rehearsed and prepared, is unfortunately almost devoid of humour and high spirits.

Other favourites would include Colin Davis (for his Berlioz), Lamberto Gardelli (his early Verdi operas are excellent), Vittorio Gui (both in Italian opera and Mozart), Antonio Pappano (a true man of the theatre, he excels in a wide variety of repertoire from Britten to Wagner) and William Christie in Handel and Baroque. And an honourable mention for the superb Victor De Sabata, who was coaxed into the recording studio far too rarely. His Tosca alone has assured that his name will never be forgotten. I am ashamed to say I know too little of the work of Toscanini to include him.

With one or two exceptions (Tannhauser, Elektra), Solti is one of my least favourite opera composers. Italian opera doesn't suit him at all. The very last opera I heard him conduct actually in the theatre was La Traviata at Covent Garden. I found the conducting totally lacking in that element of lyricism and song so important in Verdi. And in most of his recordings, I find him all to full of surface swagger, but with little underneath. I admit I have heard little of his Mozart, but am told his le Nozze di Figaro (well it does have a superb cast), and his second Magic Flute are actually rather good.

[Que]

They are both my favorites, but for different works. The conductors I hate are like...Karl Bohm. Listen to him do Mozart's requiem and it might be your own!

Hmmm Im sure theres more but I can't think of any others right now.

I share many of your reservations on Karl Böhm.

BUT he was a magnificent conductor of Richard Strauss' operas - as a Mozartian you'll inevitably venture in their direction. In Strauss operas, Böhm was maybe only equaled by Erich Kleiber, Clemens Krauss and Fritz Reiner (and no, I'm not "forgetting" Solti.. )

And Böhm's "Ring des Nibelungen" is pretty terrific too!

Q

[LaciDeeLeBlanc]

James Levine is an excellent conductor. Recently I've come to appreciate his conducting style and clarity.  It must be kept in mind that interpretation of music is not the only aspect of conducting, the actual act of conducting and ability to lead musicians is truly paramount.

[Mozart]

James Levine makes the most ridiculous faces during the dramatic part. Watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nemAKvtXL8w just watch that. Its a great way to kick the music off, a mental image of James Levine on the potty after thanksgiving.