Tillman Michael appointed as choral conductor metropolitan opera Next season, Donald Palumbo will retire after 17 years as chorus master.
Michael, 49, was choral conductor at the National Theater in Mannheim, Germany, and later held the same position at the Frankfurt Opera from 2014 to 2015. He spent ten years as assistant choral conductor at the annual Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth.
michael worked with Meet music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin In 2019, when he performed Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13 with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Chorus. Nézet-Séguin and Thomas Rothman, director of music management at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, approached Michael about the job last year.
Rothman attended a performance of Verdi’s “Don Carlo” in Frankfurt, and Michael went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to hear the choruses of Verdi’s “Castle of Fate” and Puccini’s “Turandot.” His hiring was announced Tuesday.
“The Metropolitan Opera House is a special theater and one of the most important opera houses in the world,” said Michael. “Obviously, I think New York is a very interesting, vibrant city and offered a lot of opportunities.”
The orchestra and choir are the central elements of the company, performing up to seven performances of four productions per week and 18 operas during the season. The choir is made up of 74 regular members and 85 additional choir members.
Peter Gelb, the Metropolitan’s general manager, said Michael, like the other candidates, spent a day working with the Metropolitan Choir.
“Yannick and Thomas were convinced that he was the right person for the Metropolitan Museum of Art,” Gelb said. “He was one of the top candidates from the beginning and was invited to come and try it out at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and have a session or two with the choir.”
