In Thursday’s (6/26) New York Times, Robert D. McFadden reports, “Julius Rudel, the Austrian-born conductor who raised the New York City Opera to a venturous golden age with highbrow music for the masses and a repertory that, like him, bridged the Old and New Worlds, died on Thursday at his home in New York. He was 93. … Mr. Rudel was the maestro and the impresario and the director of City Opera for 22 years (1957-79), working in the orchestra pit while running the company on shoestring budgets, signing contracts, casting productions and nurturing young singers like José Carreras, Plácido Domingo, Sherrill Milnes and Beverly Sills.” A Jewish refugee from Vienna who arrived in New York in 1938, Rudel “graduated from the Mannes School of Music in 1942 and became an American citizen in 1944.” During his career he “conducted operas and orchestras in scores of cities in the United States and around the world.” He was the first music director of Washington’s Kennedy Center (1971-75) and held that post with the Buffalo Philharmonic from 1979 to 1985. A memoir, First and Lasting Impressions: Julius Rudel Looks Back on a Life in Music, was published by the University of Rochester Press in 2013.
Posted June 27, 2013
