Editing Georg Solti (section)

===Covent Garden===
[[File:Royal Opera House.JPG|thumb|upright|alt=interior of grand 19th-century theatre|Royal Opera House, Covent Garden]]
In 1960, Solti signed a three-year contract to be music director of the [[Los Angeles Philharmonic]] from 1962.<ref name=s124 /> Even before he took the post, the philharmonic's autocratic president, [[Dorothy Buffum Chandler|Dorothy Chandler]], breached his contract by appointing a deputy music director without Solti's approval. Although he admired the chosen deputy, [[Zubin Mehta]], Solti felt he could not have his authority undermined from the outset, and he withdrew from his appointment.<ref name=s124 /> He accepted an offer to become musical director of [[The Royal Opera|Covent Garden Opera Company]], London. When first sounded out about the post, he had declined it. After 14 years of experience at Munich and Frankfurt, he was uncertain that he wanted a third successive operatic post.<ref name=h257>Haltrecht, p. 257</ref> Moreover, founded only 15 years earlier, the Covent Garden company was not yet the equal of the best opera houses in Europe.<ref>Haltrecht, p. 237</ref> [[Bruno Walter]] convinced Solti that it was his duty to take on Covent Garden.<ref>Haltrecht, p. 259</ref>

Biographer [[Montague Haltrecht]] suggests that Solti seized the breach of his Los Angeles contract as a convenient pretext to abandon the philharmonic in favour of Covent Garden.<ref>Haltrecht, p. 258</ref> In his memoirs, though, Solti wrote that he wanted the Los Angeles position very much indeed.<ref name=s124>Solti, pp. 124–125</ref> He originally considered holding both posts in tandem, but later acknowledged that he had had a lucky escape, as he could have done justice to neither post had he attempted to hold both simultaneously.<ref name=s124 />

Solti took up the musical directorship of Covent Garden in August 1961.<ref>Haltrecht, p. 264</ref> The press gave him a cautious welcome, but some concern arose that under him a drift away from the company's original policy of opera in English might occur. Solti, however, was an advocate of opera in the vernacular,<ref name=what>"What Sort of Opera for Covent Garden?", ''The Times'', 9 December 1960, p. 18</ref>{{refn|At Munich and Frankfurt, the usual practice had been to give non-German operas in German translation.<ref>Solti, p. 76</ref>|group= n}} and he promoted the development of British and [[Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth]] singers in the company, frequently casting them in his recordings and important productions in preference to overseas artists.<ref>Haltrecht, p. 295</ref> He demonstrated his belief in vernacular opera with a triple bill in English of Ravel's ''[[L'heure espagnole]]'', Schoenberg's ''[[Erwartung]]'', and Puccini's ''[[Gianni Schicchi]]''.<ref>"Solti's Success with Opera in English", ''The Times'', 18 June 1962, p. 5</ref> As the decade went on, however, more and more productions had to be sung in the original language to accommodate international stars.<ref name=w21>"Sir David Webster's 21 Years at Covent Garden", ''The Times'', 12 April 1965, p. 14</ref>

{{Quote box |quoted=true |bgcolor=#F3F0FD |salign=right| quote = [Solti] announced his intention of making Covent Garden "quite simply, the best opera house in the world", and in the opinion of many he succeeded.| source = ''[[Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]'' <ref name=grove />|align=left| width=250px}}

Like his predecessor [[Rafael Kubelík]], and his successor [[Colin Davis]], Solti found his early days as musical director marred by vituperative hostility from a small clique in the Covent Garden audience.<ref>Haltrecht, pp. 207 (Kubelik) and 271 (Solti); and Canning, Hugh. "Forget the booing, remember the triumph", ''The Guardian'', 19 July 1986, p. 11 (Davis)</ref> Rotten vegetables were thrown at him,<ref name=dnb /> and his car was vandalised outside the theatre, with the words "Solti must go!" scratched on its paintwork.<ref name=h271>Haltrecht, p. 271</ref> Some press reviews were strongly critical; Solti was so wounded by a review in ''The Times'' of his conducting of ''The Marriage of Figaro'' that he almost left Covent Garden in despair.<ref name=canning />{{refn|The anonymous ''Times'' reviewer had complained of Solti's "supercharged, chromium-plated account of the score ... many details were simply glossed over ... heartless and featureless."<ref>"Mr. Solti Skates over the Score", ''The Times'', 31 May 1963, p. 15</ref> ''[[The Observer]]'', however, had praised the conductor's "intelligence and sensitivity".<ref>Tracey, Edmund. "Masterstrokes in a masterpiece", ''The Observer'', 2 June 1963, p. 23</ref> and ''[[The Guardian]]'' spoke of "tremendous verve plus ''real'' security in the ensemble on stage".<ref>Hope-Wallace, Philip. "Le Nozze di Figaro", ''The Guardian'', 31 May 1963, p. 9</ref>|group= n}} The chief executive of the Opera House, [[David Webster (opera manager)|Sir David Webster]], persuaded him to stay with the company, and matters improved, helped by changes on which Solti insisted.<ref>Haltrecht, p. 279</ref> The chorus and orchestra were strengthened,<ref name=dnb /> and in the interests of musical and dramatic excellence, Solti secured the introduction of the ''[[stagione]]'' system of scheduling performances, rather than the traditional repertory system.{{refn|Under the old repertory system, a company would have a certain number of operas in its repertoire, and they would be played throughout the season in a succession of one- or two-night performances, with little or no rehearsal each time. Under the ''stagione'' system, works would be revived in blocks of perhaps 10 or more performances, fully rehearsed for each revival.<ref>[http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/O003207 "Stagione"], ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'', ed. [[Stanley Sadie]], Grove Music Online Oxford Music Online, accessed 2 March 2012 {{subscription}}</ref>|group= n}} By 1967, ''The Times'' commented that "Patrons of Covent Garden today automatically expect any new production, and indeed any revival, to be as strongly cast as anything at the Met in New York, and as carefully presented as anything in [[La Scala|Milan]] or [[Vienna State Opera|Vienna]]".<ref name=t20>"Twenty marvellous years at Covent Garden", ''The Times'', 13 January 1967, p. 14</ref>

The company's repertory in the 1960s combined the standard operatic works with less familiar pieces. Among the most celebrated productions during Solti's time in charge was [[Arnold Schoenberg|Schoenberg's]] ''[[Moses und Aron|Moses and Aaron]]'' in the 1965–66 and 1966–67 seasons.<ref>Goodman, pp. 57–59</ref> In 1970, Solti led the company to Germany, where they gave ''Don Carlos'', ''Falstaff'', and ''Victory'', a new work by [[Richard Rodney Bennett]]. The public in Munich and Berlin were, according to the ''[[Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung]]'', "beside themselves with enthusiasm".<ref>''Quoted'' in Lebrecht, p. 281</ref>

Solti's bald head and demanding rehearsal style earned him the nickname "The Screaming Skull".<ref name=dnb /> A music historian called him "the bustling, bruising Georg Solti&nbsp;– a man whose entire physical and mental attitude embodied the words 'I'm in charge'."<ref>Morrison, p. 217</ref> Singers such as [[Peter Glossop]] described him as a bully,<ref>Glossop, p. 147</ref> and after working with Solti, [[Jon Vickers]] refused to do so again.<ref>Haltrecht, pp. 289–290</ref>{{refn|Solti later expressed doubt about this view of his tenure at Covent Garden. He maintained that if he had been an autocrat, he was a benign one, and stories that he terrified singers were exaggerated: "There were not many scandals in my Covent Garden career; a few, but not serious&nbsp;– not à la Toscanini or à la Karajan. I didn't have those, not really."<ref>Canning, Hugh. [http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LSTB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtxf:ctx&rft_dat=0F92A2FA8CA356F9&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA "A life on record"], ''The Sunday Times'', 14 September 1997</ref>|group= n}} Nevertheless, under Solti, the company was recognised as having achieved parity with the greatest opera houses in the world.<ref name=t20 /> [[Elizabeth II|Queen Elizabeth II]] conferred the title "the Royal Opera" on the company in 1968.<ref>"The Royal Opera", ''The Times'', 24 October 1968, p. 3</ref> By this point, Solti was, in the words of his biographer Paul Robinson, "after Karajan, the most celebrated conductor at work".<ref>Robinson, p. 44</ref> By the end of his decade as music director at Covent Garden Solti had conducted the company in 33 operas by 13 composers.{{refn|The operas new to the company's repertoire were: ''[[La damnation de Faust]]'', ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream (opera)|A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'', ''[[Iphigénie en Tauride]]'', ''[[Orfeo ed Euridice]]'', ''[[Gianni Schicchi]]'', ''[[L'heure espagnole]]'', ''[[Erwartung]]'', ''[[Moses und Aron|Moses and Aaron]]'', ''[[Arabella]]'', ''[[Die Frau ohne Schatten]]'', ''[[Eugene Onegin (opera)|Eugene Onegin]]'', ''[[Falstaff (opera)|Falstaff]]'' and ''[[La forza del destino]]''. The other operas Solti conducted before stepping down in 1972 were: ''[[Fidelio]]'', ''[[Billy Budd (opera)|Billy Budd]]'', ''[[Così fan tutte]]'', ''[[Don Giovanni]]'', ''[[Le nozze di Figaro]]'', ''[[The Magic Flute]]'', ''[[The Tales of Hoffmann]]'', ''[[Der Rosenkavalier]]'', ''[[Elektra (opera)|Elektra]]'', ''[[Salome (opera)|Salome]]'', ''[[Don Carlos]]'', ''[[Otello]]'', ''[[Rigoletto]]'', ''[[Der fliegende Holländer]]'', ''[[Das Rheingold]]'', ''[[Die Walküre]]'', ''[[Siegfried (opera)|Siegfried]]'', ''[[Götterdämmerung]]'', ''[[Tristan und Isolde]]'' and ''[[Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg|Die Meistersinger]]''.<ref name=roh>[http://www.rohcollections.org.uk/SearchResults.aspx?person=Solti&searchtype=performance&page=0 "Performance search results&nbsp;– Solti"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190709040951/http://www.rohcollections.org.uk/SearchResults.aspx?person=Solti&searchtype=performance&page=0 |date=9 July 2019 }}, Royal Opera House Collections Online, accessed 3 March 2012</ref>|group= n}}

In 1964, Solti separated from his wife. He moved into the [[Savoy Hotel]], where not long afterwards he met [[Valerie Pitts]], a British television presenter, sent to interview him.<ref>Robinson, p. 38</ref> She, too, was married, but after pursuing her for three years, Solti persuaded her to divorce her husband. Solti and Valerie Pitts married on 11 November 1967.<ref>Solti, p. 137</ref> They had two daughters.<ref name=who />