Gustavo Dudamel introduced his resignation as music director of the Paris Opera on Thursday, a shock determination two seasons right into a six-year contract scheduled to run by the 2026-27 season. A 42-year-old Venezuelan who lives in Madrid, Dudamel was employed in February by the New York Philharmonic as its music director beginning with the 2026-27 season. He has been music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic since 2009, a tenure that may finish after 17 seasons when Dudamel begins in New York.
“It’s with a heavy coronary heart, and after lengthy consideration, that I announce my resignation as music director of the Paris Opera to be able to spend extra time with my household,” Dudamel stated in a press release Thursday.
His early exit from Paris on the finish of the present season in August might free the conductor for extra engagements in New York, the place Jaap van Zweden leaves after the 2023-24 season, his sixth as music director.
“I’ve no plans aside from to be with my family members, to whom I’m deeply grateful for serving to me to proceed to be robust in my resolve to develop and stay challenged, each personally and artistically, each day,” Dudamel stated.
Dudamel performed the New York Philharmonic final weekend, for the primary time since his appointment was introduced, in three performances of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, and he’s not scheduled with the orchestra subsequent season. He and Philharmonic CEO Deborah Borda participated in in depth planning conferences final week.
“He’s been contemplating his life very rigorously over the previous couple of years. Like so many individuals throughout the pandemic, he took the time, all of us took the time, to judge our lives, our objectives, our futures, discovering simply the suitable stability,” Borda stated in a phone interview. “It is a important transfer on actually the chessboard of his life as he contemplates his future.”
Dudamel made his Paris Opéra debut in December 2016 in Claus Guth’s staging of Puccini’s La Bohème that was moved to a spaceship, and his appointment by the Paris Opéra was introduced in April 2021 to begin that Aug. 1.
He performed new productions of Puccini’s Turandot and Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) in his first season, adopted this season by a revival of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and the corporate debut of John Adams’ Nixon in China. The 2023-24 season, introduced in March, has Dudamel main a brand new manufacturing of Wagner’s Lohengrin beginning Sept. 23 and Thomas Ades’ The Exterminating Angel beginning Feb. 9.
The standing of his engagements with the corporate subsequent season shouldn’t be clear.
Alexander Neef had employed Dudamel after being appointed basic director of the Paris Opéra in July 2019 to succeed Stéphane Lissner for the 2021-22 season. Neef praised Dudamel’s “ardour and immense expertise.”
“He was in a position to forge a particular relationship with the musicians of the orchestra, the artists of the refrain, the singers and the inventive groups, a relationship marked by mutual respect and the need to create probably the most lovely performances collectively,” Neef stated in a press release. “Gustavo Dudamel is an immense musician. I categorical my deep gratitude to him for the work completed throughout his tenure, and I totally respect his determination.”
Dudamel’s quick tenure is uncommon within the opera world, the place scheduling typically is finished 5 years prematurely. His predecessors as Paris music director have been Philippe Jordan (2009–21) and James Conlon (1994-2004).
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