'Breakthrough' performances

[LMcD]

Have other Forum members attended concerts at which the career of an individual performer (including conductors) can be said to have achieved a breakthrough?
Back in the early 1980s, we were among the audience in the Fairfield Halls in Croydon who had come to see, among others, Salvatore Accardo play the Elgar violin concerto. It was announced that Mr - or should I say Signor? - Accardo was indisposed, but that the young British violinist Nigel Kennedy had stepped in to replace him at short notice....

[jean]

I heard Juan Diego Florez at the Pesaro Festival in 1996:

In 1996, Juan Diego auditioned in Bologna for the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro and was immediately cast in a small role in Ricciardo e Zoraide. He never sang this part, however, because events were about to catapult him into the firmament of the international opera world. It was summer and Juan Diego was already in Pesaro, rehearsing for Ricciardo e Zoraide. Shortly before the Festival’s opening night, the tenor who was due to sing the leading role of Corradino in Matilde di Shabran had to pull out because of illness. The organisers began a desperate search for a stand-in who might be up to the challenge – a less than easy task, given that this was a little-known opera, the first night was only days away, and Corradino is a very difficult role to sing. It was then that Artistic Director Luigi Ferrari offered the part to the 23 year old Juan Diego.

[Barbirollians]

Saw a very young Freddy Kempf play a recital in Snape I think definitely Suffolk could have been the Jubilee Hall in Aldeburgh ( memory plays tricks) the year before his breakthrough at the Tchaikovsky Competition . He was very impressive as I recall especially in the uncut version of the Rachmaninov Second Sonata.