Israeli conductor pianist Daniel Barenboim has been appointed artistic director of the Paris Bastille Opera, which plans to vie with New York’s Metropolitan and Milan’s La Scala for top international recognition The 44-year-old Buenos Aires-born Barenboim currently directs the Paris Orchestra, a post he will continue to assume.
The Bastille Opera will be inaugurated on July 14, 1989, to mark the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. The new opera house on the Place de la Bastille will be larger than the old Opera in the heart of Paris. The French government is planning to bill some of the world’s best-known operatic stars for the new theater and has given Barenboim a free reign for choosing its programs.
Barenboim, who is one of the regular conductors of the Bayreuth Festival in West Germany, will be assisted by Eva Wagner, the daughter of German composer Richard Wagner, whose music was greatly admired by Hitler.
Eva Wagner will be in charge of operatic planning, and choreographer Rudolf Nureyev will be director of the Bastille Opera’s ballet troupe.
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