We Need More Of This

[NOTE: This entry has been updated (1) as of 2:03 AM Eastern on 7 Mar. See below.]

A conductor with enough integrity and possessing sufficient balls to give a decisive thumbs-down to a Regietheater hijacker, that is; decisive enough to strip the hijacker of his next contracted-for assignment.

Franz Welser-Möst, music director of the Vienna State Opera, is so critical of Jean-Louis Martinoty's two recent Mozart productions [Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni] that a planned third [Così fan tutte] has been cancelled, reports the Kleine Zeitung. [...] From the outset, said Welser-Möst, Martinoty dismissed everything in the pit as a collateral matter.

RTWT here.

---

Update (2:03 AM Eastern on 7 Mar): Here are detailed reviews of the Le Nozze di Figaro and the Don Giovanni noted above editorially in square brackets. The reviews appear on the blog Likely Impossibilities with which blog we were previously unfamiliar but with which blog we were impressed; impressed enough to add it to our exclusive Culture Blogs listing on our left sidebar. Our thanks to Opera-L's Martin Rommel for calling our attention to these reviews.