When the curtain falls on the 2023–24 season this June, Donald Palumbo, the Met’s beloved C. Graham Berwind, III Chorus Master, will step down from the post he has held since 2007. Over the past 17 years, with tireless energy, unrelenting pursuit of improvement, and uncompromising attention to detail, he has transformed the ensemble, now widely considered the best opera chorus in the world. It is a fitting legacy for a man whose entire life has been lived with a singular devotion to the art form he calls “a triumph of humanity.” By Jay Goodwin
When he was ten years old, Donald Palumbo was puzzled to find himself in the gardening section of his local library. For a fifth-grade essay, Palumbo wanted to write about Lily Pons, the scintillating coloratura soprano who had captured his imagination through the Met’s Saturday Matinee Radio Broadcasts. But opera was not exactly a popular pastime in 1950s Rochester, New York, and the librarian wasn’t familiar with the name. She had brought him to books about lily ponds.
That Palumbo was writing essays about sopranos in grade school reveals just how early he was bitten by the opera bug. He remembers his first experience of the art form, when he was seven or eight years old and an aunt who had a particular love for La Traviata played him some excerpts on her 78s. From there, he became a regular listener to the Met’s broadcasts, frequently visited the library to borrow opera recordings, and made sure to catch the star singers who occasionally appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show.
“Even at that young age, I was overwhelmed by how beautiful these works of art were,” Palumbo says. “I was bowled over by the genius of these great composers.”
That reverence has endured for some 65 years now, and in his career as a chorus master, Palumbo’s determination to do justice to the masterpieces of the operatic repertory has driven him to uncommon levels of effort in pursuit of the very highest artistic standards.
“He’s enormously committed and indefatigable in his energy,”
says Kurt Phinney, a Met chorister since 1994 and Chorus Manager since 2001.
“He’s also very demanding, but it comes from a love of the music, a realization
that we at the Met are at the pinnacle of our art form, and a profound sense of
obligation to every performance and to the audience.”………
https://www.metopera.org/discover/articles/voice-leader/
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