“Tibor Rudas, an impresario who once booked Luciano Pavarotti into a circus tent in Atlantic City and packed Dodger Stadium for a performance by the Three Tenors, died of natural causes Monday at his home in Santa Monica,” writes Elaine Woo in Wednesday’s (9/10) Los Angeles Times. “The Hungarian native … made a name for himself in the United States by bringing Las Vegas-style brio to performances by highbrow artists. He presented the New York Philharmonic in an Atlantic City casino and produced large outdoor concerts for other classical artists at the Eiffel Tower, the Sydney Superdome and other unconventional venues…. Classical music aficionados often took a dim view of his extravaganzas … but the Dodger Stadium concert drew 50,000 people…. Rudas was born in Budapest on Feb. 6, 1920.… Rudas and his brother were sent to the Nazi camp at Bergen-Belsen…. He landed in Las Vegas in 1963 and began producing variety shows.” Pavarotti’s 1983 concert in Atlantic City, presented by Rudas, was “so successful that Rudas left Atlantic City and made Pavarotti concerts his main business…. He also booked the Three Tenors on a 1996 world tour under the direction of the Metropolitan Opera’s James Levine.”
Posted September 10, 2014
