New York, NY, October 13, 2007 -- Donald Palumbo will be the Metropolitan Opera’s Chorus Master beginning with the 2007-08 season, General Manager Peter Gelb and Music Director James Levine announced today. Mr. Palumbo succeeds Raymond Hughes who is stepping down after sixteen seasons in the job.
Currently Chorus Master at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Mr. Palumbo is also a chorus consultant for Canadian Opera in Toronto, and has regularly prepared choruses for opera and concerts in Europe. He is the first American to serve as chorus director of the prestigious Salzburg Festival, where he worked from 1999 to 2001, collaborating with such prominent conductors as Valery Gergiev, Lorin Maazel, Sylvain Cambreling, Christoph von Dohnányi, and Kent Nagano.
Mr. Gelb said, “Donald Palumbo is widely regarded as the greatest chorus conductor in the world today. Joining forces with Maestro Levine, he will build on the considerable achievements of Raymond Hughes, who for sixteen seasons maintained the highest artistic standards of the Met Chorus.”
Maestro Levine said, “I am proud of the artistic achievements of the Met Chorus and greatly appreciate the rewarding collaboration I have had with Raymond Hughes. I look forward to working with Donald Palumbo, whose vocal expertise and long experience in choral work are sure to add new dimensions to our performances.”
A native of Rochester, New York, Mr. Palumbo received his training as an assistant to Robert Benaglio, esteemed Chorus Master of La Scala, Milan. Mr. Palumbo has worked extensively in France at the Opéra de Lyon, Paris’ Théâtre du Châtelet (including their production of Berlioz’s Les Troyens conducted by John Eliot Gardiner), and the Aix-en-Provence Festival. He has conducted the Chorus of Radio France in concerts featuring works by Bruckner, Mendelssohn, Pizzetti, and Verdi.
A former chorus master of both Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and the Dallas Opera, Mr. Palumbo served as Music Director of the Boston Chorus pro Musica from 1980 to 1990, and returned to prepare the chorus for performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 at Boston Symphony Hall and Carnegie Hall in February, 2004.
Raymond Hughes became the Met’s Chorus Master at the beginning of the 1991-92 season. His work at the Met has included some of the most challenging operas for chorus in the repertory, such as Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron, Berlioz’s Les Troyens and Benvenuto Cellini, Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and Prokofiev’s War and Peace. In addition he prepared the Met Chorus for four world premieres, and concert performances of such major choral works as the Verdi Requiem and Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust.
Mr. Palumbo prepared the Met Chorus for Parsifal in the 2005-06 season, and will also prepare them for the current season’s new production of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice which premieres May 2, 2007. Following the appointment of Craig Rutenberg as Director of Music Administration in August, Mr. Palumbo is the second addition to the Met’s musical staff under the administration of new General Manager Peter Gelb.
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