Monday 24 January 2011

Zubin Mehta celebrates his 150th with a tour of Spain

SPAIN - Zubin Mehta is 150 years old this year. No, he is not Methuselah, but he has been conducting three different orchestras for 50 years each: The Israel, Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics. So this is a year full of celebrations and thus he comes to Madrid with another of his projects, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, scheduled within the Musical Youth cycle , with which he has been working since 1985. The tour takes him to Oviedo (January 25), Zaragoza (26) and Valladolid (27). Alas, nothing in the South.>At an interview with El Pais, Mehta said that he hadn't known that Plácido Domingo had recently celebrated his 70th birthday. "You could never tell. There is simply no other singer of his kind who could reach that age in his condition," said the Indian conductor.

Spain has been included in his touring schedules for decades,among other reasons because of the acoustic quality of its auditoriums. "Not only the older theatres," he says, "but also the newer ones. I only know of anything similar in Japan. These are the best places to play in the world."

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