There have previously been threads here concerning left handed conductors (Donald Runnicles being a prominent current example) and pondering how it is to be on the receiving end of such carving...
How about an ambidextrous conductor though? I was unaware such mythic beasts existed until this weekend. I had a good view into the pit at WNO's really rather good Forza del Destino on Saturday and my attention was drawn to Carlo Rizzi conducting with baton in left hand. I could have sworn he had been right handed for the previous 20 years!
For the rest of the evening he switched, sometimes in a fraction of a second, back and forth, seemingly at random. The gestures looked pretty well indistinguishable from a distance.
(As an aside my understanding is that he was a bit of a tyrant back in the day but has mellowed a little. I certainly appreciated it when he got fed up and briefly stopped everything to glare furiously at the perpetrator of one of the preposterously frequent barrages of coughing from some of the audience in an otherwise surprisingly gripping Tosca on Friday. I was hoping for more of a baton smashing and volley of furious Italian abuse incident. It would have been richly deserved).
Have there been any other conductors of note in the habit of demonstrating this unusual but not obviously useful skill? It must be a bit disconcerting to follow at first. Maybe that's the idea? Something seemed to work - the WNO orchestra outshone even the pretty excellent singing from the principals in the Verdi. Pity the libretto is rather a shambles, but it didn't matter all that much.
How about an ambidextrous conductor though? I was unaware such mythic beasts existed until this weekend. I had a good view into the pit at WNO's really rather good Forza del Destino on Saturday and my attention was drawn to Carlo Rizzi conducting with baton in left hand. I could have sworn he had been right handed for the previous 20 years!
For the rest of the evening he switched, sometimes in a fraction of a second, back and forth, seemingly at random. The gestures looked pretty well indistinguishable from a distance.
(As an aside my understanding is that he was a bit of a tyrant back in the day but has mellowed a little. I certainly appreciated it when he got fed up and briefly stopped everything to glare furiously at the perpetrator of one of the preposterously frequent barrages of coughing from some of the audience in an otherwise surprisingly gripping Tosca on Friday. I was hoping for more of a baton smashing and volley of furious Italian abuse incident. It would have been richly deserved).
Have there been any other conductors of note in the habit of demonstrating this unusual but not obviously useful skill? It must be a bit disconcerting to follow at first. Maybe that's the idea? Something seemed to work - the WNO orchestra outshone even the pretty excellent singing from the principals in the Verdi. Pity the libretto is rather a shambles, but it didn't matter all that much.
- and not a few professional ones, too.
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