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The year 2026 will mark James Conlon\u2019s 20th anniversary as music director of the Los Angeles Opera. That seemed to him like it would be the right time to step down.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had 20 years \u2014 that\u2019s a good round number,\u201d Conlon, 73, said in a telephone interview. \u201cI want to stop when I\u2019m at my full capacity and I want to be able to go on loving the company the way I do.\u201d<\/p>\n
His final season, the 2025-26 season, will coincide with the company\u2019s 40th anniversary, and Conlon said that he \u201cwanted to be there to celebrate that with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt will mean I will have been there for half of its history,\u201d said Conlon, who has led more than 460 performances of 68 different operas there, more than any other conductor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Conlon will be named the opera\u2019s conductor laureate, which the company said would be in recognition \u201cof his distinguished tenure and contribution to Los Angeles Opera and the community at large, and in acknowledgment of the mutual intention for Conlon to return to the company as a guest conductor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christopher Koelsch, the opera\u2019s president and chief executive, praised Conlon\u2019s musical leadership and said that there was \u201csomething elegant about the timing\u201d of his departure, coinciding as it does with both anniversaries. He added that the transition \u201cpresents an opportunity for us as an organization for a different perspective and generational change.\u201d<\/p>\n
It will be a transformational moment for classical music in Los Angeles: 2026 is also the year that Gustavo Dudamel will leave the Los Angeles Philharmonic<\/a> for the New York Philharmonic.<\/p>\n L.A. Opera is already in a moment of transition<\/a>. Pl\u00e1cido Domingo, who was instrumental in its creation, reigned for decades as its leading star and served as its general director, stepped down in 2019<\/a> amid allegations of sexual harassment.<\/p>\n As to what the opera will be looking for in Conlon\u2019s successor, Koelsch said, \u201cSomeone who has a similar evangelism for the art form and a 21st-century point of view on what that means.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Conlon, who will be 76 when he steps down, said he is not retiring, and that he plans to continue as a guest conductor in Los Angeles and elsewhere, devote time to personal goals (\u201cI still want to see the Taj Mahal and I\u2019d like to go on safari\u201d) and to continue to focus on music education.<\/p>\n \u201cThe most important crisis facing classical music is we\u2019re all fighting for an audience,\u201d he said, adding that he \u201ccan be very persuasive in enticing people who feel afraid of classical music not to be inhibited by these big buildings that look like fortresses.\u201d<\/p>\n Education has been a hallmark of Conlon\u2019s tenure. Before performances he talks audiences through key moments of each opera, lectures captured on the company\u2019s \u201cBehind the Curtain\u201d<\/a> podcasts and YouTube channel.<\/p>\n Highlights of his tenure in Los Angeles include the company\u2019s first staging of Wagner\u2019s \u201cRing\u201d <\/em>cycle; a \u201cFigaro Trilogy\u201d that featured Rossini\u2019s \u201cThe Barber of Seville,\u201d <\/em>Mozart\u2019s \u201cThe Marriage of Figaro\u201d and John Corigliano\u2019s \u201cThe Ghosts of Versailles\u201d; \u201c<\/em>Britten 100\/LA,\u201d which celebrated the centennial of the composer Benjamin Britten\u2019s birth; and a performance of \u201cThe Anonymous Lover<\/a>,\u201d a rarely seen opera by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a prominent Black composer in 18th-century France.<\/p>\n Conlon has conducted at many leading opera houses around the world, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg Festival, the Teatro alla Scala in Milan and the Paris Opera, where he was the principal conductor<\/a>.<\/p>\n He has consistently sought to bring attention to composers suppressed by the Third Reich with efforts like \u201cRecovered Voices<\/a>,\u201d which has brought neglected operas to the stage of Los Angeles Opera since 2007.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re a good music director, it means you\u2019re really devoted,\u201d Conlon said. \u201cThat has always been my purpose and goal \u2014 to be a good music director.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n