Palumbo, Donald

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    Donald Palumbo Reinvigorated the Met Opera Chorus. Next Stop Chicago.

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    The Chicago Symphony Orchestra has hired Donald Palumbo, 76, the former chorus master of the Metropolitan Opera, to lead its chorus.When Donald Palumbo departed his post as chorus master of the Metropolitan Opera last year after nearly two decades, he could have easily taken a break.But Palumbo, 76, wasn’t finished. “I knew it was not a retirement situation for me,” he said.Now Palumbo has lined up his next position: the Chicago Symphony Orchestra announced on Tuesday that he would serve as its next chorus director — only the third in the choir’s 67-year history — beginning an initial three-year term in July.“I love this chorus,” Palumbo said in a telephone interview from Chicago, where he was rehearsing the chorus. “I love this city.”Palumbo was a fixture at the Met from 2007 to 2024, helping turn the chorus into one of the most revered in the field. He could often be seen during performances racing around backstage, working with singers to refine bits of the score.He was chorus master at Lyric Opera of Chicago from 1991 to 2007. At the Chicago Symphony, he said, he hoped to work with the singers on “creating an identity as a chorus from the way we sing, and the way we devote ourselves to the music.”Jeff Alexander, the Chicago Symphony’s president, said that Palumbo had built a close relationship with the chorus during guest appearances over the years, creating ”an atmosphere of collaboration that yielded exceptional artistry.”“We knew this would be the ideal choice to build on the legacy of this award-winning ensemble,” Alexander said in a statement.Palumbo, who lives in Santa Fe and will commute to Chicago, is already at work with the Chicago singers. He will serve as guest chorus director this month for Verdi’s Requiem, working with Riccardo Muti, the Chicago Symphony’s former music director. In July, he will begin his tenure as chorus director with a performance of Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony at the Ravinia Festival, led by the festival’s chief conductor, Marin Alsop.While Palumbo has forged a close relationship with Muti, he said, he was still getting to know Klaus Mäkelä, the Chicago Symphony’s incoming music director, who begins in 2027. (Palumbo said he has been watching videos of Mäkelä on YouTube: “Everything he does musically is exciting,” he said.)Palumbo said he hoped to stay in Chicago beyond the end of his initial term in 2028.“I certainly am not planning on having a cutoff point,” he said. “I intend to keep working.” More

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      He Made the Met Opera’s Chorus the Best in the World

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      During the second intermission of the Metropolitan Opera’s gilded, gargantuan production of “Turandot” one Friday last month, Donald Palumbo raced up to a tiny broadcast studio on the top floor for an interview.Then he raced downstairs again. There was something he needed to do backstage before the curtain rose.Palumbo, 75, who is retiring this spring after 17 years as the company’s chorus master, wanted to run through the start of Act III with the quartet of heralds, drawn from the chorus, who hauntingly call out a warning from Princess Turandot.It was 13 performances into the season’s “Turandot” run, at 10 o’clock at night. But Palumbo, one of opera’s most mild-mannered yet most unrelenting perfectionists, was still making sure that the singers’ intonation was flawless, still fine-tuning the placement of the first note in a certain phrase.Palumbo conducting from the wings during a performance of “Turandot” at the Metropolitan Opera in April. Elliott Jerome Brown Jr. for The New York Times“You have to be very specific,” he had said earlier about the way he coaches his choristers, “but you can’t micromanage.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Met Opera Chooses Tilman Michael as Next Chorus Master

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      Tilman Michael, who leads the Frankfurt Opera’s chorus, will succeed the veteran conductor Donald Palumbo, who steps down this season after 17 years.The chorus master at the Metropolitan Opera has one of the company’s most demanding jobs. There are singers to corral, notes to correct and centuries-old scores to pore over.Donald Palumbo, who brought the chorus to new heights during his 17-year tenure as chorus master, announced last fall that he would step down in June. And on Wednesday, the Met announced his successor: the German conductor Tilman Michael, who has served as chorus master of the Frankfurt Opera for the past decade.Michael, 49, who will join the company at the start of the 2024-25 season in the role of chorus director, said in an interview that he was eager for a “new and exciting” challenge, describing the Met as “one of the most important opera houses in the world.”“Choral singing and choral conducting is my life — it’s what I’ve done since I was a child,” he said. “I’ve loved this work from the very first day.”Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Met’s music director, who selected Michael, said in a statement that he was a “longtime collaborator and friend whose work I deeply respect.”“I welcome him wholeheartedly to the Met family,” he said. “He has an innate understanding of the complexity of the voice and draws out the best in the choruses he works with.”Under Palumbo, 75, the Met chorus, with 74 regular members and 85 extras, has become an equal partner with the company’s world-class orchestra.Michael, who has also led the chorus at the National Theater in Mannheim, Germany, and served as an assistant chorus master at the Bayreuth Festival and the Hamburg State Opera, said he hoped to build on Palumbo’s legacy. He said he felt a special connection to the choristers when he traveled to New York in February to meet them and try out some repertoire. They worked together on Offenbach’s “Les Contes d’Hoffmann,” Puccini’s “La Rondine” and Kevin Puts and Greg Pierce’s “The Hours.”“The Met Opera chorus is a fantastic chorus,” he said. “But I think we can of course every day improve and search for new colors and search for new abilities.”Michael said he was looking forward to a production of Richard Strauss’s fairy-tale opera “Die Frau Ohne Schatten” next season, as well as to new operas by John Adams, Jeanine Tesori and other composers.“When choral music is done well, it’s magic,” he said. “It is just about listening to each other and creating a unique sound together — to feel this energy from your body, from your ears, in your heart.” More