Less an exit than a carefully timed cadence, Conlon transitions from day-to-day leadership into the role of Conductor Laureate, maintaining his artistic relationship with LA Opera while continuing an active international guest-conducting career.
“A veteran who has been active in opera for more than five decades, Conlon knows how to adjust tempos, phrasing, and sonorities to the style at hand. His Bernstein had visceral, vernacular punch; his Verdi was ardent and spry; his Britten had the right textural grit; his Mozart unfurled with complicated grace… Rejecting the nonsense mystique of the maestro, Conlon demonstrates that only two things matter in the end: knowledge and conviction.”
– Alex Ross, The New Yorker
Illustration by Jan Robert Dünnweller
