#Zubin Mehta

[cosmonautroger]

Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Jose Carreras, Zubin Mehta, Marechiare

[koshigurajumy]

Daniel Barenboim plays Tchaikovsky - Piano Concerto No.1 in B flat minor, Op.23 (2012) Staatskapelle Berlin conducted by Zubin Mehta

[older-is-better]

Zubin Mehta.

[vinyl-artwork]

Zubin Mehta - Star Wars And Close Encounters (1978)

Cover by Page Wood

[blackswaneuroparedux]

After conducting Wagner, Beethoven's triple concerto is like taking an Alka Seltzer.

Zubin Mehta

For more than 60 years, Zubin Mehta has been at the top of his profession. He was head of some of some of the world’s greatest orchestras including the New York Philharmonic and the Bavarian State Opera. But at 87 years old, The Indian Parsee born Zubin Mehta is getting frail. Music lovers should treasure him as he is alas one of the last of an important generation of Viennese trained conductors that included his classmate Claudio Abbado.

Photo: Mehata conducts the Staatsoper Berlin during a performance of Wagner and Bruckner, 9 July 2023.

[married-to-a-redhead]

My Sunday morning classical music. The combination of flute and harp makes this piece ethereal and almost magical.

[dweemeister]

July 10, 2024

By Tim Grieving

Before John Williams believed in himself as a conductor, the general manager of the Los Angeles Philharmonic believed in him.

Ernest Fleischmann was a savvy and powerful impresario, born in Germany in 1924, raised in South Africa to escape the Nazis, a frustrated conductor and journalist who managed the London Symphony Orchestra for eight years and ran the European classical division of CBS Records before coming to Los Angeles in 1969 and transforming a “provincial second-rank orchestra,” as L.A. Times critic Mark Swed wrote, “into one of the world’s best.”...

... When Fleischmann saw Star Wars with his kids on opening weekend in the summer of 1977, he thought to himself: God, this score! “It’s really the score and the sound effects that have made that movie what it was,” he later said. “It was almost Wagnerian.” The LA Phil was scheduled to tour Japan that fall, but the tour was canceled at the last minute when the promoter went bankrupt. With his orchestra suddenly freed up, and Star Wars totally consuming the culture, Fleischmann saw a plum opportunity; he paid a visit to John Williams’ Brentwood home and asked the composer if the LA Phil could perform music from Star Wars in a concert of space-themed music. Williams said “Fantastic,” and created a special 28-minute suite from his already super-famous, record-breaking score.

The resulting concert on November 20th, 1977 at the Hollywood Bowl—the iconic outdoor summer home of the LA Phil—was a galactic party designed for young families, complete with a laser light show and readings by William Shatner. The sold-out audience went crazy for it, but the event also highlighted the deep tension between anointed priests of “high culture” and the hoi polloi. “We were criticized very heavily,” recalled Zubin Mehta, the LA Phil’s music director who conducted that night. “Our critics and colleagues said that we had sold our souls to Hollywood. It was really a children’s concert.” The grumpy L.A. Times critic Martin Bernheimer called it “artistic prostitution.”

Fleischmann didn’t care. He had the LA Phil repeat the “Music from Outer Space” program at the California Angels’ baseball stadium in nearby Anaheim, and he commissioned an album of the Star Wars suite and Williams’ new Close Encounters suite, recorded at UCLA’s Royce Hall in December 1977 by Mehta and the orchestra. According to veteran classical music broadcaster Jim Svejda, it was the first time a major American orchestra treated film music “in a very serious way. I think it made a very dramatic statement.”

[sivavakkiyar]

Zappa & Zubin Mehta

[myvinylplaylist]

Zubin Mehta: Suites From Star Wars And Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1978)

Featuring the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra

Recorded December 1977 in Royce Hall, UCLA

London Records

[onenakedfarmer]

Currently Playing

John Knowles Paine SYMPHONY NO. 2

Zubin Mehta New York Philharmobic

[paul-archibald]

Asian Conductors

Asian conductors have made significant contributions in the classical music world for many years. Kent Nagano and Tadaaki Otawa (Japan) and Myung-Whun Chung (South Korea) among others. In this edition of In Conversation we look at two titans of the classical stage whose impact has been immense for close on fifty years. However, a new generation of talent is immerging so we pick two conductors who…

[wolfie-wolfgang]

Going to Naples and Sorrento - on an Italian opera trail.

Watching Mount Vesuvius from Sorrento, across the Bay of Naples, I thought of Pliny the Younger (born 61 AD), as you do, who wrote a detailed description of the catastrophic eruption of the volcano (79 AD) that killed his uncle, the great Roman naturalist, Pliny the Elder, who sailed into the disaster because he was interested in the science of volcanoes. Pliny the younger watched the destruction…

[suchananewsblog]

Zubin Mehta is back in Mumbai to perform for the first time with the Symphony Orchestra of India

After arriving in Mumbai earlier this week, celebrated conductor Zubin Mehta has spent a good amount of time on stage. He has been rehearsing with the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI), with whom he is performing for the first time. “I am quite impressed with the musicians I have interacted with,” he says. Zubin will conduct two shows at the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre on August 19 and 21. The line up…

[beyourselfchulanmaria]

Luciano Pavarotti sings "Nessun dorma" from Turandot (The Three Tenors in Concert 1994)

Renowned Italian tenor Pavarotti (1935–2007) sings the aria from the final act of Puccini's opera Turandot, live in concert with The Three Tenors in Los Angeles in 1994. Watch the full performance, newly available in digital video: https://w.lnk.to/The3TenorsLY

The Three Tenors (José Carreras, Plácido Domingo, and Luciano Pavarotti) are joined by conductor Zubin Mehta, the L.A. Philharmonic, and the L.A. Music Center Opera Chorus.

A Tibor Rudas production.

[silver-screen-divas]

Happy 89th birthday to Nancy Kovack!

Kovack played the female lead, bad girl Sophie Renault, opposite Mike Henry in “Tarzan and the Valley of Gold” (1966).

Born Nancy Diane Kovach on March 11, 1935, in Flint, Michigan, she attended the University of Michigan and worked as a radio announcer while winning a series of beauty contests. Kovack then moved to New York, where she worked as one of Jackie Gleason’s “Glea Girls” and served as a presenter on “Beat the Clock”, and as an anchorwoman on “Today” and for “The Dave Garroway Show”, while earning extra money through modeling and commercials.

A role on Broadway in “The Disenchanted” (1958-59) led to a Columbia Pictures contract, and her film debut, “Strangers When We Meet” (1960). Additional big-screen credits include “Cry for Happy” (1960), “The Wild Westerners” (1962), “Diary of a Madman” (1963), “Jason and the Argonauts” (1963), “The Outlaws Is Coming” (1965), “Sylvia” (1965), “The Great Sioux Massacre” (1965), “Frankie and Johnny” (1966), “The Silencers” (1966), “Enter Laughing” (1967), and “Marooned” (1969). On television, she appeared in popular series like “12 O’Clock High,” “Burke’s Law,” “I Dream of Jeannie,” “Batman,” “Perry Mason,” “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” “I Spy,” “Star Trek,” “The F.B.I.,” “Family Affair,” “Get Smart,” “Bewitched,” “Mannix,” “Hawaii Five-O,” “Get Smart,” “Bronk,” and “Cannon.”

Following her marriage to Los Angeles and New York Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Zubin Mehta, Kovack retired from acting.

[princesssarisa]

Opera on YouTube

I've shared links to complete opera performances before, but I love to share them, so I thought I'd make a few masterposts.

These list are by no means the only complete filmed performances of these operas on YouTube, but I decided that ten links for each opera was enough for now.

By the way, some of the subtitles are just a part of the video, while others require you to click CC to see them.

Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)

Hamburg Philharmonic State Opera, 1971 (Nicolai Gedda, Edith Mathis, William Workman, Christina Deutekom, Hans Sotin; conducted by Horst Stein; English subtitles)

Ingmar Bergman film, 1975 (Josef Köstlinger, Irma Urrila, Håkan Hagegård, Birgit Nordin, Ulrik Cold; conducted by Eric Ericson; sung in Swedish; English subtitles)

Salzburg Festival, 1982 (Peter Schreier, Ileana Cotrubas, Christian Bösch, Edita Gruberova, Martti Talvela; conducted by James Levine; Japanese subtitles)

Bavarian State Opera, 1983 (Francisco Araiza, Lucia Popp, Wolfgang Brendel, Edita Gruberova, Kurt Moll; conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch; English subtitles)

Metropolitan Opera, 1991 (Francisco Araiza, Kathleen Battle, Manfred Hemm, Luciana Serra, Kurt Moll; conducted by James Levine; English subtitles)

Paris Opera, 2001 (Piotr Beczala, Dorothea Röschmann, Detlef Roth, Desirée Rancatore, Matti Salminen; conducted by Ivan Fischer; no subtitles)

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 2003 (Will Hartman, Dorothea Röschmann, Simon Keenlyside, Diana Damrau, Franz Josef Selig; conducted by Colin Davis; no subtitles) – Act I, Act II

La Monnaie, Brussels, 2005 (Topi Lehtipuu, Sophie Karthäuser, Stephan Loger, Ana Camelia Stefanescu, Harry Peeters; conducted by René Jacobs; French subtitles)

Kenneth Branagh film, 2006 (Joseph Kaiser, Amy Carson, Benjamin Jay Davis, Lyubov Petrova, René Pape; conducted by James Conlon; sung in English)

San Francisco Opera, 2010 (Piotr Beczala, Dina Kuznetsoca, Christopher Maltman, Erika Miklósa, Georg Zeppenfeld; conducted by Donald Runnicles; English subtitles)

La Traviata

Mario Lanfrachi studio film, 1968 (Anna Moffo, Franco Bonisolli, Gino Bechi; conducted by Giuseppe Patané; English subtitles)

Glyndebourne Festival Opera, 1987 (Marie McLaughlin, Walter MacNeil, Brent Ellis; conducted by Bernard Haitink; Italian and Portuguese subtitles)

Teatro alla Scala, 1992 (Tiziana Fabbricini, Roberto Alagna, Paolo Coni; conducted by Riccardo Muti; English subtitles)

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1994 (Angela Gheorghiu, Frank Lopardo, Leo Nucci; conducted by Georg Solti; Spanish subtitles)

Teatro Giuseppe Verdi, 2003 (Stefania Bonfadelli, Scott Piper, Renato Bruson; conducted by Plácido Domingo; Spanish subtitles)

Salzburg Festival, 2005 (Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazón, Thomas Hampson; conducted by Carlo Rizzi; no subtitles)

Los Angeles Opera, 2006 (Renée Fleming, Rolando Villazón, Renato Bruson; conducted by James Conlon; English subtitles)

Opera Festival St. Margarethen, 2008 (Kristiane Kaiser, Jean-Francois Borras, Georg Tichy; conducted by Ernst Märzendorfer; English subtitles)

Teatro Real di Madrid, 2015 (Ermonela Jaho, Francesco Demuro, Juan Jesús Rodríguez; conducted by Renato Palumbo; English subtitles)

Teatro Massimo, 2023 (Nino Machiadze, Saimir Pirgu, Roberto Frontali; conducted by Carlo Goldstein; no subtitles)

Carmen

Herbert von Karajan studio film, 1967 (Grace Bumbry, Jon Vickers; conducted by Herbert von Karajan; English subtitles)

Vienna State Opera, 1978 (Elena Obraztsova, Plácido Domingo; conducted by Carlos Kleiber; English Subtitles)

Francisco Rosi film, 1982 (Julia Migenes, Plácido Domingo; conducted by Lorin Maazel; English subtitles)

Metropolitan Opera, 1987 (Agnes Baltsa, José Carreras; conducted by James Levine; English subtitles)

London Earls Court Arena, 1989 (Maria Ewing, Jacque Trussel; conducted by Jaques Delacote; English subtitles)

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 1991 (Maria Ewing, Luis Lima; conducted by Zubin Mehta; English subtitles) – Acts I and II, Acts III and IV

Arena di Verona, 2003 (Marina Domashenko, Marco Berti; conducted by Alain Lombard; Italian subtitles)

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 2006 (Anna Caterina Antonacci, Jonas Kaufmann; conducted by Antonio Pappano; English subtitles) – Acts I and II, Acts III and IV

Metropolitan Opera, 2010 (Elina Garanca, Roberto Alagna; conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin; English subtitles) – Acts I and II, Acts III and IV

Opéra-Comique, 2023 (Gaëlle Arquez, Frédéric Antoun; conducted by Louis Langrée; English subtitles)

La Bohéme

Franco Zeffirelli studio film, 1965 (Mirella Freni, Gianni Raimondi; conducted by Herbert von Karajan; English subtitles)

Metropolitan Opera, 1977 (Renata Scotto, Luciano Pavarotti; conducted by James Levine; no subtitles)

Teatro alla Scala, 1979 (Ileana Cotrubas, Luciano Pavarotti; conducted by Carlos Kleiber; no subtitles)

Opera Australia, 1993 (Cheryl Barker, David Hobson; conducted by Julian Smith; Brazilian Portuguese subtitles)

Teatro Regio di Torino, 1996 (Mirella Freni, Luciano Pavarotti; conducted by Daniel Oren; Italian subtitles)

Teatro alla Scala, 2003 (Cristina Gallardo-Domâs, Marcelo Alvarez; conducted by Bruno Bartoletti; Spanish subtitles)

Zürich Opera House, 2005 (Cristina Gallardo-Domâs, Marcello Giordani; conducted by Franz Welser-Möst; no subtitles)

Robert Dornhelm film, 2009 (Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazón; conducted by Bertrand de Billy; no subtitles)

Opera Australia, 2011 (Takesha Meshé Kizart, Ji-Min Park; Shao-Chia Lü; no subtitles)

Sigulda Opera Festival, 2022 (Maija Kovalevska, Mihail Mihaylov; conducted by Vladimir Kiradjiev; English subtitles)