Conlon Begins Final LA Opera Sequence with Verdi

Title: Conlon Begins Final LA Opera Sequence with Verdi. James Conlon has entered his final season at LA Opera with Verdi’s 'Falstaff,' marking the conclusion of a twenty-year tenure that significantly altered the American operatic landscape. Score on IMSLP. Conlon’s primary legacy remains the 'Recovered Voices' project, which restored composers suppressed by the Third Reich, such as Schreker and Zemlinsky, to the standard repertoire. This diagnostic approach to history replaced the traditional US focus on blockbusters with a more rigorous musicological inquiry. By placing these works alongside the core canon, Conlon proved that the aesthetic gap between the 'standard' and the 'forgotten' was often a product of political intervention rather than musical quality. His departure marks the end of an era where programming served as a form of historical justice.