The Washington Post
By Anne Midgette
Gianandrea Noseda will be the next general music director of the Zurich Opera in the 2021-2022 season and will conduct his first “Ring” cycle there, directed by Andreas Homoki. The company made the announcement at a news conference in Zurich on Monday.
He replaces Fabio Luisi, who, the company also announced, will be leaving his post a year early. Luisi was recently announced as the next music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.
The move is a result of the ongoing game of musical chairs in top posts of international classical music institutions. The initial announcement was to be that Homoki, Zurich’s general director, was extending his contract through 2025. But Luisi, Homoki says, came to him a few months ago and said that he had decided not to extend his own contract. As a result, Homoki and Luisi agreed that Luisi would leave a year earlier, in 2021, to give his successor four seasons to work with — and to give him room to plan the “Ring” that Homoki had long dreamed of doing.
Noseda was available because he resigned his longtime post at the Teatro Regio in Torino, Italy, in April.
“It was unexpected for me, too,” said Noseda, reached by phone in St. Petersburg, where he was conducting in the White Nights Festival. “After the situation in Torino, I had decided to leave the opera a little bit aside, take a little break” — apart, of course, from engagements at the Metropolitan Opera, where he will open a new production of “Adriana Lecouvreur” this year on New Year’s Eve. “Came this telephone call, ‘I want to do a “Ring” with you,’ Andreas Homoki. It was difficult to say no.”
Noseda has been doing more German repertoire in recent years, including “Tristan und Isolde” in Torino. This will be his first “Ring” — as well as Homoki’s. It will begin with “Das Rheingold” in the 2021-2022 season.
Homoki, reached by phone in Zurich, says he’s eager to work with Noseda. “He first conducted here two years ago,” he said, “and he then led ‘The Fiery Angel’ and a series of ‘Macbeth.’ He left a great impression. He was one of the top names I wanted to have here.” When Luisi told him that he had decided not to extend his contract, Homoki says, Noseda “was at the top of my very short shortlist.”