“Bernard Haitink has announced his retirement,” writes Francisco Salazar in Wednesday’s (6/12) Opera Wire. “The acclaimed conductor, now 90, announced that his final concert on the podium will be on Sept. 6 at the Lucerne Festival. The concert will include Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto and Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony. The concert will be one of two this summer at the Lucerne Festival where he will also conduct Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with Ana Maria Richter and Schubert’s Fifth Symphony. He will also conduct at the Salzburg Festival where will perform the same program as his final concert. He will also conduct his final Amsterdam concert with Camilla Tilling.” Haitink was chief conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra for 27 years. In opera, “Haitink was well known for his work at the Glyndebourne Festival and Royal Opera, where he served as the music director for a number of years. He … conducted at such renowned houses as the Metropolitan Opera and Opernhaus Zurich.” In addition to leading many European orchestras and opera companies, in the U.S. Haitink has conducted widely and served as principal guest conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (1995-2004) and principal conductor at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (2006-10).
Posted June 13, 2019
