The Ring Master

The Ring Master

After an absence of more than forty years, maestro Lorin Maazel is back at the Met this month, leading Die Walküre. MATTHEW GUREWITSCH chats with the one-time child prodigy about his rich and eclectic life in music.

Currently music director of the New York Philharmonic, ex of the Cleveland Orchestra and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Lorin Maazel has been a fixture on the American concert scene for so long that we are apt to forget his lifelong devotion to opera. In the coming months, however, New Yorkers are due for two forceful reminders of his prowess in that department, and both will be broadcast. After a hiatus of forty-four years, the Met has won him back for this month's strongly cast revival of Die Walküre. In June, the New York Philharmonic offers Tosca in concert form under his baton, starring principals of staged performances Maazel led at La Scala in 2006 — Hui He as Tosca, Walter Fraccaro as Cavaradossi and George Gagnidze as Scarpia

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