Daniel Barenboim to Resign from Berlin State Opera Due to Health Concerns

“The conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim has announced his resignation as general music director of the Berlin State Opera due to his declining health,” writes Kate Connolly in Friday’s (1/6) Guardian (U.K.). “The 80-year-old has been leading the Staatsoper since 1992 and expressed his gratitude in a statement for the 30 years of collaboration … Barenboim, who is among the pre-eminent conductors in the world, has served as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, and La Scala in Milan…. He is credited with reviving the Staatskapelle, the orchestra of the opera house … in former East Berlin … He took it to new artistic heights and international prominence … Last October Barenboim announced he was stepping back from performing after a diagnosis of the neurological condition vasculitis … On Friday, he said: ‘Unfortunately the state of my health has worsened considerably … I can no longer achieve the level of performance which is rightly required of a general music director…. Of course, I will stay—as long as I live—closely connected to music and am ready to conduct.’ ”