Seiji Ozawa Will Return to Conduct Béla Bartók in August

The Maestro plans a comeback.
(Photo: Pierre Verdy/AFP)

"Celebrated Japanese conductor Seiji Ozawa said Tuesday he would make a full comeback onstage in August with a series of 70-minute opera performances in the Japanese mountain city of Matsumoto. The 75-year-old maestro, who underwent surgery on oesophageal cancer last year and has been treated after hernia surgery in January, said he would conduct the Saito Kinen Orchestra on August 21, 23, 25 and 27. They will perform Bela Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle at the 20th Saito Kinen Festival, an annual classical music festival in Matsumoto. 'I got pneumonia. I got a bad hernia. I had a lot of trouble. But now I am able to walk around and go anywhere I want,' Ozawa, a former principal conductor of the Vienna State Opera, told a news conference in Matsumoto. 'I want to conduct more but I must restrain myself as I am told by my family and doctor to do so,' he said." [Source]