“Music is oxygen”

Feeling stronger after his kidney tumor was removed, maestro Zubin Mehta (pictured) returned to the podium in end September 2020 to conduct Verdi’s La Traviata in concert form at La Scala, as per a news item in German from the Austrian newspaper Wiener Zeitung quoting the Milan daily Corriere della Sera, shared with Parsiana by our subscriber Roshun Birdy. "For me, music is oxygen. First the illness, then the epidemic. I just couldn’t stand staying away from the podium any longer,” stated Mehta who was delighted to perform at the reopened Milan Opera House that had suspended performances because of coronavirus.
Planning two other concerts at La Scala, with music by Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler, the Indian born conductor reiterated, "We have to make as much music as possible. Theaters are one of the safest places. I am no longer a teenager and have had many health problems, but I am conducting again without fear.”
When visiting an orthopedic surgeon with a knee complaint, it was diagnosed that Mehta was suffering from metastatic kidney cancer. "Everyone was very shocked, except me. I called my doctor in Israel who came to Los Angeles. I was operated on by a team made up of an Austrian count, a Syrian doctor and two Greek doctors: an international team,” mentioned the 84-year-old conductor.
Honorary president of the Florentine Opera House, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Mehta reported that they are working on bold projects, inviting performers like star tenor Placido Domingo and former music director of New York’s Metropolitan Opera James Levine who are facing allegations of sexual harassment in the United States. "We’ll leave the blacklists to American puritanism,” stated Mehta regretting that the career of these star performers was ruined "all because of complaints that came from failed artistes after 30 years. That sounds like revenge.”