After completing 50 years with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO), music director Zubin Mehta performed his final concert with the Orchestra on July 13 at the Yarkon Park in Tel Aviv. "An enormous crowd of young and old rose almost simultaneously as the now frail but still charismatic maestro took the stage, opening with the Orchestra’s moving rendition of Israel’s national anthem Hatikvah,” it was reported in The Times of Israel of July 15.
Top: Zubin Mehta conducting the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra;
above: with Ron Huldai Photos: Hanoch Grizitzky;
Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai described the conductor as the "crown jewel of Israel’s cultural life.” Mehta is regarded as one of Israel’s foremost cultural ambassadors through the country’s tumultuous past half century. Having first conducted the group in 1961 at the age of 25 it is estimated that he has performed over 3,000 concerts with the IPO. When he started his work with the Orchestra, the members "were twice my age and now everyone is three times younger,” joked Mehta. "Israelis, like Indians, are opinionated and they have the habit of all speaking at the same time which made me feel at home. People think this is a Jewish characteristic. It’s not. It’s Asiatic,” the Indian conductor had conveyed in an earlier interview.
Over the years when he has conducted many orchestras — Montreal Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic — he has come to be known for his precise and subtle hand gestures which exert the utmost control. For the concert on July 13, his gentle yet vigorous body language was projected on two large screens on either side of the stage for the benefit of the audience.
Befitting his expertise in the operatic world — having held principal posts at the Metropolitan Opera New York, Vienna State Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, La Scala, Chicago Opera, Bavarian State Opera — the farewell concert included performances by American soprano Mary Elizabeth Williams, Russian mezzo-soprano Olesya Petrova, American tenor Gregory Kunde and Moldovan bass Oleg Tsybulko. The celebrations concluded with an impressive display of fireworks.
A Mehta protégé, 30-year-old Israeli pianist-conductor Lahav Shani was voted by the IPO members to succeed the maestro.