Placido Domingo
Swiss newspaper Le Temps already warned readers from a concert Placido Domingo was scheduled to conduct at the Verbier Festival. Their contributor had comments from orchestra musicians: » ‘The conductor doesn’t know the works, he’s completely lost,’ mutters an instrumentalist. ‘It’s the assistant conductor who conducts behind the principal conductor to give the starts to the different desks,’ says yet another. Numerous anonymous musician voices refer to the unusual situation that has been playing out since yesterday in rehearsals at the Verbier Festival: instrumentalists who stop, bewildered by the maestro of the day, Placido Domingo, who doesn’t seem to have mastered much of anything. »
And Belgian Crescendo magazine has a comment for the concert itself: » After the intermission, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 was conducted by Placido Domingo, and at the end the audience mostly applauded, some booed. At first, Domingo tried to keep his composure. But the first violin led the performers off stage, while Domingo looked confused, spreading his hands… ».
