Born in Milan, Italy, in 1933, Claudio Abbado has enjoyed a reputation as one of the world’s leading opera conductors, beginning in the 1960s. His father was a composer and violinist, and the young Abbado was encouraged to study music first at the Milan Conservatory, and then at the Vienna Academy of Music. Following the pattern of many conductors of his era, Abbado boosted his career significantly by winning two prominent conducting competitions—the Koussevitsky in 1958, and the Mitropolis in 1963. As a child he grew up watching Arturo Toscanini conduct operas and orchestras in his hometown of Milan. The elder statesman of the podium exhibited a tyrannical methodology toward his orchestra members that Abbado found crude and unwelcome, and he resolved to be much less confrontational during rehearsals.
In 1960, Abbado made his professional conducting debut at the La Scala Opera House in Milan. He later served as the company’s music director, occupying that post from 1968 through 1986. In addition to conducting all the major works of the Italian operatic repertoire—notably pieces by Verdi and Puccini—he also began the practice of presenting at least one contemporary opera each season, as well as creating a concert series to showcase the orchestral works of Mussorgsky and Berg.
Away from opera, Abbado has enjoyed stints with some of the world’s most notable orchestras. He was the principal conductor of the London Symphony from 1979 to 1987, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony from 1982 to 1986, and chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic from 1989 to 2002. His inclination for presenting modern orchestral works in concert has made him one of the chief proponents for such composers as Karl-Heinz Stockhausen, Thomas Adler, and Roberto Carnevale. He enjoys a reputation for working well with young musicians, having founded the European Union Youth Orchestra in 1978, and the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra in 1986. He has recorded many works with various European and American orchestras, primarily on the labels Deutsche Grammaphon and Sony BMG Masterworks. Despite suffering cancer of the stomach in 2000, Abbado continues to conduct the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, which he formed in 2003.
Abbado leads the Lucerne Festival Orchestra in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2: