Lightning Conductor

SPOTLIGHT

He just turned seventy-five, but who would know? When Georg Solti leaps to the podium to conduct Mahler, even the most chronic nocturnal hibernants wake up— and stay awake. He never had much hair to shake around; his anti-gravitational jumps are modest compared with those of levitating Lenny. And yet Sir Georg is simply one of the most elegantly forceful and compelling conductors in the world.

In his early thirties, he couldn't have filled a matchbook with his C.V. Solti was stuck in Switzerland during World War II, and his career moved like a glacier. But when he finally got a chance, he took one musical bastion after another: the Munich Opera, the Frankfurt Opera, London's Covent Garden, and finally Chicago, turning its logy band into a world-class orchestra. Along the way, he picked up a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth and an unprecedented twenty-five Grammy Awards. His "Ring" recording with the soprano Birgit Nilsson in her trumpeting prime would make dragon Fafnir purr like a kitten, and he's made enough money to balance the budget of his native Hungary.

He claims he's more mellow and relaxed than he was in the high-pressure fifties, when exhausted musicians painted blood on the tip of his baton. More obvious to listeners is that the maestro has discovered a sense of humor. Just listen to his sparkling new recording of Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio. The old Magyar sounds ready to put down the baton and crawl up the ladder himself to rescue poor Constanze from the clutches of the infidel. All those years spent guiding bulky deities over Valhalla's bridge haven't deadened his touch for the feath" erbrains in Pasha Selim's harem. Is there anyone on the podium today who's lighter on his feet?

MANUELA HOELTERHOFF