SF Opera, Symphony seek conductors who can carry musical vision into future

On a Tuesday night in October, Nicola Luisotti conducted his final performance as music director of the San Francisco Opera. A mere two weeks later, Michael Tilson Thomas announced that he’d be stepping down in 2020, after a quarter century as the San Francisco Symphony’s music director.

And just like that, both of the city’s top musical institutions are simultaneously on the lookout for conductors who can undertake the task of musical leadership in a new era.

There are some telling differences between the two searches, which can be traced back to the different roles filled by a music director in a symphony orchestra or an opera company. But the collective upshot remains the same — sometime around three years from now, the musical profile on either side of Grove Street is going to look and sound very different.

In Davies Symphony Hall, the Symphony board is tasked with finding a figure as protean, charismatic and resourceful as Thomas, 73, but someone who can put his or her own stamp on an ensemble that by this point has been largely shaped in someone else’s image. The Opera’s leadership, meanwhile, is seeking a conductor with both the stylistic range and the artistic ambition to be an equal partner with General Director Matthew Shilvock in forging the company’s future.

For the Symphony, the shift is likely to be more striking and noticeable, if only because there is simply nobody more important than the music director in crafting a symphony orchestra’s character and artistic profile.

Whomever the board decides to bring on will conduct the vast majority of the orchestra’s concerts, take the orchestra on tour and lead whatever recordings may appear. That person oversees the choice of repertoire, makes personnel decisions over time, and molds the sound of the orchestra through the slow, methodical rehearsal process. The artistic product that the Symphony offers to its patrons is above all a reflection of the music director’s sensibilities and talents.

At the Opera, the music director has many of the same responsibilities, but with one key difference. Although the entire musical arena, both orchestral and vocal, is entrusted to the music director, in this world music is just one key strand in an elaborate artistic tapestry that includes stage direction, theatrical design, dance and much more.

“Opera is considered the most collaborative art form,” says Gregory Henkel, the company’s artistic managing director. “Music is primary, but it’s not the only aspect of what we do. So for us, the general director is responsible for overseeing the entire picture of what goes into any given season, which for a symphony orchestra is more the music director’s job.”

As a result of this divergence, the two job searches are going on at different paces and with different emphases. Thomas’ announcement was issued with plenty of lead time, giving the Symphony more than two years to find and secure a successor. Assuming everything goes as planned, he should be able to hand the baton (forgive the pun) to the next conductor without any loss in coverage.

At the Opera, on the other hand, Shilvock has decided to take an interim period of at least two years, during which the company will operate without a music director in place.

“Unlike in the symphonic world, we do our planning three, four, even five years out,” he says. “So there’s a lot of stability in the planning that’s already in place; we’re not just looking at this void. And we have two great emeritus conductors, Nicola and (former music director) Donald Runnicles, who bring incredible insight to different parts of the repertoire.”

The idea of an opera company doing without a music director for a stretch is not as loopy as it might sound. For one thing, the position is a comparatively recent development for some American companies. The San Francisco Opera, for instance, didn’t acquire its first music director until 1986, when General Director Terence McEwen appointed the British conductor John Pritchard to the post. So it isn’t an existential necessity the way it is for a symphony orchestra.

Also, simply getting guest conductors into the mix at the Opera can be an uphill climb. The scarcity of open slots — just eight or nine productions a season, compared with the dozens of concert weeks available in Davies — militates against a full-on parade of aspirants, as does the long lead time in operatic planning.

And if recent history is any guide, one knockout guest appearance may even be enough to seal the deal. After all, it worked for Runnicles, who was hired immediately after conducting two superb performances of Wagner’s “Ring” Cycle in 1990, and again for Luisotti, whose 2005 company debut leading Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino” was enough to secure him the job.

At the Symphony, meanwhile, the churn is constant, with guest conductors coming in regularly to appear for a week or two. The short time commitment — a stark contrast to the month and a half that an opera production takes out of a conductor’s life — and the flexibility of planning in the orchestra world make it an easy thing for Symphony administrators to squeeze some young up-and-coming talent onto the schedule.

So for the next two years, everybody who takes the podium in Davies — or who has appeared there in recent seasons — is going to be regarded as at least a potential auditioner for the new music director. It’s a multipronged job description, and it would be hard to overstate just how important the decision is to the future of the organization.

“First and foremost, we will be looking for someone with the ability to create exciting and artistically superb performances onstage,” says Mark C. Hanson, the Symphony’s recently appointed executive director.

“But we also want someone who cares deeply about collaborating with other musicians and other organizations, so that the San Francisco Symphony never appears isolated. We want a music director who’s aware and has sensitivity to social and political issues, someone who isn’t satisfied with the status quo, and who has a real vision for the future.”

For all the artistic differences in the two posts, one thing for sure is that whoever takes either post is going to have to be a visible member of the Bay Area community, ready to represent the company outside the hall in interactions with patrons, donors and other supporters.

There’s a firm expectation, for example, that a new music director would make San Francisco home — even though that can be a tall order when guest engagements beckon in Europe. But the days when music directors could afford to limit their activity to study, rehearsal and performance have long since passed.

And even though the two companies tend to stay in their own lanes, there’s always the tantalizing possibility that at least one of them might hire a music director with an interest in the other company’s activities.

That would be an interesting anomaly in the recent history of Grove Street. Neither Thomas nor Herbert Blomstedt, his predecessor at the Symphony, ever made forays into the pit of the War Memorial Opera House, and traffic in the other direction has been limited to a handful of Symphony guest appearances by Runnicles early in his tenure, and one guest stint by Luisotti, now 56, before he’d actually taken up residence at the Opera.

“It’s not easy for a conductor to have their feet in both worlds,” Hanson says. “On the whole you tend to have specialists. But I do think it would open some really interesting doors to artistic collaboration. In my wildest dreams, we find someone who over time develops a healthy relationship with the San Francisco Opera.”

For that matter, Hanson says, even the two searches might overlap during the coming years.

“I don’t rule out the possibility of learning about a fabulous conductor through that conductor’s guest appearance at the Opera, or having them hear a great conductor at Davies.”

In other word, the pool of candidates might be even bigger than it initially appeared.