In Wednesday’s (4/3) Plain Dealer (Cleveland), Zachary Lewis writes, “ ‘O Fortune, like the moon, you are changeable.’ Those words, the first lines of ‘Carmina Burana,’ carry additional meaning as the Cleveland Orchestra performs Carl Orff’s magnum opus next week. After falling ill last weekend in Vienna, Austria, music director Franz Welser-Möst has followed the advice of his physician and withdrawn from next week’s concerts at Severance Hall, ceding the podium to his assistant, conductor James Feddeck. On Sunday, Welser-Möst was conducting Wagner’s ‘Parsifal’ at the Vienna State Opera, where he serves as general music director, when he was stricken with acute lower back pain. A physician treating him during intermission sent the conductor to a hospital for the pain as well as for low blood pressure. The conductor recovered and has since been recuperating at his home in Vienna. However, his physician recommended that he not travel to Cleveland. Whether Welser-Möst will be able to conduct in Cleveland the last two weeks of April, as scheduled, remains uncertain. Happily, one thing that has not changed next week is the orchestra’s program. Under Feddeck, the ensemble will go forward as planned with Bach’s Concerto in A Minor, with oboe d’amore soloist Robert Walters, and with ‘Carmina Burana.’ ”
Posted April 4, 2013
