Fabulous Fabio

With my nose in my book, I am so out of things! And today in the Wall Street Journal I was reading Heidi Waleson's story about Fabio Luisi, above, the new conductor of the Metropolitan Opera.

I had no idea the Met had a new conductor, although I did know about James Levine's health problems. And I have never heard of Maestro Luisi.

Waleson writes that Luisi (I keep wanting to write "Bidini," I am mixing him up with Fabio Bidini,  the pianist coming to the Buffalo Philharmonic) ...

(and one day soon we must play the game of famous Fabios)

... has conducted a half dozen "Ring" Cycles. Good, good.

He was trained as a pianist. Good, good.

Wikipedia tells me they have three sons.

His wife is Bavarian. Like me! My ancestry is Bavarian. Well, part of it anyway. I am also from Alsace-Lorraine and, ahem, Baden-Wurttemberg.

Let us watch Fabio Luisi in action.



Sounds good to me!

Does anyone have a problem with that? I don't.

Luisi, buttering up New York, says in closing how much he admires the energy of the city.

"You can really smell and breathe it all the time, even when I take our dogs to the park at midnight. There's a feeling of wanting to be alive and productive for oneself, family, neighbors and society. In Europe, the growing tendency is, 'I don't care, someone will provide.'"

Haha! Buffalo has quite a bit of that "I don't care" attitude and rest assured, Maestro Luisi, there is a lot of that in New York too. We do not have a monopoly on it.

Do not start believing there are not slugs in New York and America at large!

But we should not scare off Luisi. He seems like a sweet guy.

He says, "Here, I feel the taking of responsibility. It's quite amazing for me -- as an Italian, especially."

Cute story.