Conductor Collapses During Wagner Opera
An attack of Lumbago has been blamed for forcing Vienna Opera’s musical director Franz Welser-Moest (pictured) to collapse while conducting a Wagner opera. Welser-Moest suffered a severe attack when he raised his baton at the end of the first act of the four-and-a-half-hour long “Parsifal.” I’ve always marveled at the physical stamina of conductors who conduct reams of Wagner throughout a career — and not just at Bayreuth, where there’s no air-conditioning.
