Word: abravanel
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Bunch of Cowboys. In 1936 Abravanel sailed for New York and, armed with letters of introduction from Conductors Bruno Walter and Wilhelm Furtwangler, got a job conducting at the Metropolitan Opera. He made his debut conducting Delibes' Lakme, starring Lily Pons. Two years later he quit to become Weill's music director on Broadway, conducting such classics as Knickerbocker Holiday, Lady in the Dark and One Touch of Venus...
After nearly a decade on Broadway, says Abravanel, "I was 44, and I felt it was time to settle down. I wanted an orchestra of my own to play the classics." Salt Lake City offered him the job of conducting their community orchestra. Abravanel and his wife Lucy left New York for Utah in 1947, telling friends, unwisely as it turned out, that they would be back in a year...
...long ago Abravanel received a call from some citizens of Dillon, Mont., inviting him to perform there. "We're just a bunch of cowboys," he was told. "Play anything you want." Replied Abravanel: "I think you deserve the best." Dillon was treated to Beethoven's "Eroica" Symphony. After the first movement there was an ovation. Abravanel explained that the symphony had four movements, so would the audience please save the applause until the end. The audience obediently counted; unfortunately, there was only a slight pause between the third and fourth movements, so that when the symphony crescendoed...
...them irreverent. "The Mormons really think they are superior people," says a Sinner cellist. "They are polite to us and pleasant enough, but we really don't mingle with them at all." The biggest difference between the two buses is the attitude toward the Maestro. To the Saints, Abravanel is a revered father figure. To the Sinners, he is a typical conductor-a dictator touched with fanaticism...
...that typical. On his 60th birthday, Abravanel announced to his orchestra that he was giving them the right to fire him at any time, by vote on a secret ballot. "I have seen too many of my colleagues in the arts who do not know when to quit. It is really a sad thing to witness, and I am determined that this will not be my fate." That is not to say that Maurice Abravanel would like to be voted out. "Our reward for this hard traveling is the reaction of a small-town audience when it hears a symphony...