Kalamazoo Boy

The New York City Opera swung into its spring season last week with a double bill devoted to the psychological and the tactical aspects of love. Bela Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle, a moody, Freudian opus (TIME, Oct. 13), came first. Then in a more frolicsome vein, came Ravel's L'Heure Espagnole, and its story of light-hearted Spanish intrigue. Apart from the tact that both operas were done thoroughly to the first-nighters' taste, the chief interest centered on the second conductor of the evening. After Company Director Joseph Rosenstock had conducted Bluebeard, he turned over the baton to the youngest conductor on his staff: 23-year-old Thomas Schippers (pronounced shippers) of Kalamazoo, Mich.

Schippers was a fillin. L'Heure Espagnole was to have been led by the veteran Tullio Serafin, 74. But Serafin was ill at his home in Italy. Until a fortnight ago Schippers had never had Ravel's score in his hands, but he is what is known in the heater as a quick study. With his flair for the modern and his incisive baton technique, Schippers came through fine. Ravels music sparkled, and the cast matched it with high-spirited singing and acting.

Schippers has been a conductor, and one to reckon with, since he turned 20. Up to now, however, he has been known almost exclusively as a conductor of operas by Gian-Carlo Menotti. He led The Consul on Broadway for three months (in 1950) conducted The Medium when it was filmed in Italy, and led NBC's television performances of Amahl and the Night Visitors for the past two Christmases.

Schippers transferred from a Kalamazoo high school to Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music at 14. At first, he studied organ and piano. But he got a chance to conduct the famed Philadelphia Orchestra in a student contest, and that changed his mind. He worked as a coach for the singers during the rehearsals of Menotti's Consul, got his chance to direct it after the opera had already opened on Broadway.

Now a ranking Menotti expert, Schippers sees no reason to limit himself. This summer he hopes to conduct in Europe, then will return to lead outdoor concerts in Manhattan and Chicago.

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