Now that la Scala finally has, as of today, a spanking new board of directors, and that Stéphane Lissner has been confirmed as GM until 2013 -- but he'll stay on until 2015, the year when the Expo2015 rocks Milan -- there's increased chatter about the possible decision to finally name a Music Director. Daniel Barenboim enjoys the glorified status, the cash, the co-productions with Berlin and the largely ceremonial title of "Maestro Scaligero" that his idol Wilhelm Fuertwangler used to have, a glorified title of Guest Conductor that leaves the actual choices and the power safely in Lissner's hands.
Over the years, since 2005, when Lissner took over after the Riccardo Muti era, a sequence of high-profile Italian conductors has been initially mentioned as possible new MD -- Riccardo Chailly, then Daniele Gatti -- and their phantom campaigns have consistently crashed and burned in the famously Machiavellian world of Scala affairs.
And now the mostly all-powerful Lissner, safe until 2015 in his place, might -- it is said -- finally choose a Music Director. A Music Director he'd have to share power with, obviously (keep in mind, as mean Ioan Holender famously mentioned, Lissner can't read music).
The two names being floated are Gustavo Dudamel's and Daniel Harding's.