Il Direttore Principale e dal 2017 Direttore Musicale del Teatro alla
Scala raccoglie il testimone di Toscanini e Abbado alla guida del prestigioso
Festival orchestrale svizzero
Il Teatro alla Scala rivolge le più sentite
congratulazioni al suo Direttore Principale – e Direttore Musicale dal 2017 –
Riccardo Chailly, che assumerà la carica di Direttore Musicale dell’Orchestra
del Festival di Lucerna a partire dall’edizione 2016. L’annuncio della nomina
del M° Chailly è avvenuto alla vigilia dell’apertura dell’edizione 2015 del
Festival.
“Esprimiamo la più grande soddisfazione per questa
nomina – ha dichiarato il Sovrintendente Alexander Pereira – che riveste uno
straordinario significato artistico e storico e costituisce il più prestigioso
completamento dell’attività del M° Chailly. Agli impegni operistici e sinfonici
del Maestro con l’Orchestra e il Coro scaligeri durante l’anno farà seguito, in
corrispondenza con la pausa estiva del Teatro, il lavoro con l’Orchestra del
Festival, la cui storia è segnata dai nomi di Toscanini e di Abbado e che è
composta da alcuni dei migliori strumentisti internazionali.”
La nomina di Riccardo Chailly affonda le sue radici
nella storia del Festival, il cui sviluppo è strettamente legato alle figure di
altri due direttori scaligeri: Arturo Toscanini, Direttore Musicale del Teatro
alla Scala per tre differenti periodi dal 1898 al 1929, inaugura il Festival
con una leggendaria serie di concerti nel 1938; Claudio Abbado, Direttore
Musicale alla Scala dal 1968 al 1986, forma nel 2003 la nuova Lucerne Festival
Orchestra che raccoglie alcuni dei più prestigiosi solisti del mondo intorno a
un nucleo di strumentisti della Mahler Chamber Orchestra.
(Comunicato stampa del Teatro alla Scala di Milano)
Di seguito il comunicato Stampa del Festival di Lucerna.
Riccardo Chailly Is Named
Music Director of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA
Lucerne, 13 August
2015. Riccardo Chailly is the new Music Director of the LUCERNE
FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA. He will take up this new position at the beginning of the
2016 Summer Festival, on 12 August 2016, when he will conduct the Festival
orchestra for the first time in the opening concert in a program featuring
Gustav Mahler’s Eighth Symphony. Riccardo Chailly’s
contract is for five years and stipulates that he will conduct the Orchestra in
four to five concerts during the Summer Festival. Claudio Abbado, who together
with Executive and Artistic Director Michael Haefliger founded the LUCERNE
FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA in 2003 and who led the ensemble for ten years, died on 20
January 2014.
“I am extremely
delighted that with Riccardo Chailly we have succeeded in gaining a magnificent
artist as the Music Director of the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA,” observes
Michael Haefliger, Executive and Artistic Director of LUCERNE FESTIVAL. “Arturo
Toscanini founded this unique symphony orchestra in 1938, and Claudio Abbado
reestablished it in 2003 and brought it worldwide recognition. Riccardo Chailly
marks the third time a great Italian conductor takes on leadership of the
LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA. As an outstanding artistic
personality, he will also make an imprint with strong new points of emphasis.”
“To be responsible for this great
artistic project initiated by Claudio Abbado is not only a privilege but also
something that touches me emotionally,“ says Riccardo Chailly.”„Ever since I
was 18, when he appointed me to be his assistant at La Scala, Abbado was my
model and then my point of reference and lifelong friend, with deep affection
up to the very end.
I have collaborated with Michael Haefliger
for many years in a spirit of full artistic understanding. I believe that
working with him offers a real opportunity to maintain and develop the musical
profile of the Orchestra and of the Festival, both in Switzerland and
worldwide, as they deserve.”
Riccardo Chailly, who was born in 1953
in Milan, has served as Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus
Orchestra since 2005 and as Principal Conductor of La Scala in Milan since
January 2015. He studied in Perugia, Rome, and Milan and at the age of 18
became Assistant Conductor to Claudio Abbado at La Scala in Milan. For 16 years starting in 1988, he was Principal Conductor of the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam.
He regularly conducts
the leading symphony orchestras in Europe and the United States: the Vienna
Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra,
the London Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre de Paris, as well as the New
York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the
Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He also regularly performed for such major opera companies
as the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Royal Opera House in London, the
Bavarian Staatsoper in Munich, and Zurich Opera. Riccardo Chailly has been a
regular guest artist at LUCERNE FESTIVAL since 1988, performing with the Royal
Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.