Barenboim Confirmed for Chicago Podium

Daniel Barenboim, the 46-year-old conductor/pianist fired from Opera de la Bastille in Paris two weeks ago, has been named the next music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Barenboim, who will immediately assume the title of music director designate, takes up the directorship for the 1991-92 season.

Sir Georg Solti, the highly acclaimed music director of the Chicago Symphony for the past 20 seasons, will become music director laureate. Solti, 76, told orchestra officials in 1986 that he wished to step down after the orchestra’s 1990-91 centennial season, according to the orchestra’s announcement. Barenboim almost immediately became the rumored front-runner for the position, but official announcement of it was delayed because of Solti’s desire not to spend too many years as a lame-duck director with a publicly named successor.

“This is the most difficult decision of my life . . . I was in tears,” Solti said Monday at a press conference in Chicago. “Still, it is the only right thing to do. You must not stay too long.”

Barenboim is no stranger to the Chicago Symphony. He first conducted it in 1970, and has made more than 30 recordings with the orchestra, including the Bruckner and Schumann symphony cycles. He comes to the CSO from 13 years as music director of L’Orchestre de Paris, another position where he succeeded Solti.

“I have known him (Barenboim) and have been closely involved in his development as a conductor for many years, and he is my first choice,” Solti said in the Chicago announcement.

Solti has also supported Barenboim in his dispute with Pierre Berge, who fired the conductor from the new Opera Bastille, scheduled to open on the 200th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille, July 14. Solti was one of the world-class musicians signing a petition to Culture Minister Jack Lang, suggesting they might cancel their performances with the company.

Among the issues in the affair are Berge’s charges that Barenboim was paid too much, and was turning opera-for-Everyman into a high-priced, elitist endeavor.

The conductor may become open to similar controversy in Chicago. According to published reports of his response to the appointment, Barenboim said: “If it doesn’t sound too arrogant, I really would like to take culture out of the entertainment world in Chicago. It has all the conditions for being a great cultural center.”

Barenboim’s Paris wages were $1.1 million. Chicago officials have declined to specify what he will earn on his three-year contract.