Word: sso
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...mentor in the somewhat mystical figure of Sergiu Celibidache, the Romanian-born conductor who famously declared that recorded music was like kissing a dead woman. As principal conductor at the Stuttgart Radio Symphony and the Monte Carlo Philharmonic, Gelmetti later found success - but not fame. Instead, when the SSO's then artistic administrator began telling international arts managers about Gelmetti's appointment in 2002, "many of them had never heard of him," Calnin recalls. "I think it's because he's gone against the star system that a lot of the big artist managers push. He's not interested...
...Sydney Opera House in true Italian style, accompanied by a translator and publicist, among others. After a few minutes of tentative English, he warms up to his subject. "I think it's a very important moment," he says of the coming Verdi Requiem - his coronation at the SSO - which unites 70 members of the Rome Opera chorus with the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs. As a musical marriage of "the eternal city of Rome and the city of the future, it's very symbolic," he adds. "It's very important, this moment." So important, in fact, that his interview is soon...
...play al dente when he wants short, crisp notes. And from his fans, who adore this mini-Pavarotti with an almost pantomime performance style. "Some people think that he milks it a bit, but he's got this great warmth as soon as he steps on stage," says former SSO artistic administrator Tim Calnin, who helped bring Gelmetti to Australia for the first time in 1993. "He waves and smiles at the audience like he's greeting friends...
Such is "the Italian sunshine" that De Waart hoped Gelmetti would bring to the technically assured SSO. With his arrival at the orchestra, Rome would seem to come to Sydney, as the Verdi Requiem marketing goes. "He was born in Rome" - to a businessman father and poetess mother - "and he's deeply Roman," Gelmetti's Rome Opera concertmaster Vicenzo Bolognese has said. "Romans can keep the right distance with power - a true Roman can act politically without becoming too involved." As chief conductor since April 2000, Gelmetti has helped revive that city's ailing Opera House, as well...
...bulk of the $50,000 the CIA had provided al-Jaburi was for buying accomplices. He started with "Ahmed" (not his real name), an SSO officer in the main presidential compound whom al-Jaburi already knew. "I told him everything," says al-Jaburi. "I told him I'd listed his name with the CIA, and I had $5,000 for him." Ahmed proved an easy sell, replying, "What do you want from me?" The SSO man described where the Republican Guard had been posted in Baghdad and its environs, and revealed that it had been ordered to pull back into...