Argentine-Israeli director Daniel Barenboim it will not be able to take charge of the new The ring of the Nibelungs for health reasons and the German Christian Thielemann will conduct the premiere of Richard Wagner’s tetralogy at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, the great opera house of the German city.

“I am terribly sad not to be able to conduct the new ‘Ring’ “said Daniel Barenboim, in a statement released by the Berlin National Opera, of which the maestro has been musical director since 1992 and whose contract has recently been extended until 2027.

The premiere of the new production, staged by Dmitri Tcherniakov, is scheduled for October, a few weeks before Barenboim’s 80th birthday celebrationthat in recent times he has already had to cancel some gala due to vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels.

Health, a priority

The teacher argues in the statement that his health is a “priority” issue and that you should focus on your full recovery before getting back in front of an orchestra.

The production premiere in October will be entrusted to Christian Thielemann, while the following gala will be for Thomas Guggeis.

Thielemann is considered one of the most “Wagnerian” batons. of the moment and this season he greets indefinitely the Richard Wagner Opera Festival in Bayreuth.

Thielemann was Bavarian festival head witness from 2015 to 2020 and right-hand man of its festival director, Katharina Wagner.

This season it was recovered in Bayreuth for the last time in Lohengrin conducted by Thielemann, acclaimed with enthusiastic applause from the demanding Wagnerian audience.

The season had opened with a certain commotionafter some German media echoed an alleged unease over Thielemann’s sexist and authoritarian behavior.

The last moves of the master

In March of this year, the Argentine-Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim conducted a “concert for peace” with the Berlin State Opera and the State Orchestra of that city, to raise funds to provide humanitarian aid to Ukrainians after the Russian invasion of that country. Specifically, they went to the United Nations Humanitarian Fund for Ukraine.

However, and in pursuit of the defense of the art, Barenboim questioned himself in statements to the newspaper Berliner Morgenpost the cancellation of various artists for the mere fact of being Russianjust like it was happening in various European theaters.

“I don’t think it’s good that Russian artists are automatically canceled in the West. Why? These are mainly people who have nothing to do with Putin and they don’t have a good opinion of him, “he said.

And he clarified: “Another thing is that if they are Putin enthusiastic artists who are not willing to distance themselves in this war situation, then I understand that they are not allowed to be among us.”

In this sense, Barenboim left no room for doubt about his position when describe military intervention as “an inhumane act” to Ukraine from Russia.

Source: EFE

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