Passing the baton to the offspring

A CUTE LITTLE VIDEO POPS UP on Instagram. What you see is a little boy (below), maybe three years old, sitting in the conductor’s seat in an Italian opera house and waving a baton as long as himself at a background recording of a Beethoven symphony. “Adorable!” cried Classic FM. Up to a point. The boy’s father is Francesco Ivan Ciampa, conductor at the Carlo Felice Theatre in Genoa. His intention, we may assume, was to imply that maestro talent runs in the genes. That supposition seems to be growing more widespread. Barely had I shut the Insta link than news popped up of regime change in Mainz, a town in western Germany. This is personal to me. My grandfather left Mainz in 1885 and, while none of us has…

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The Critic (Digital) - 1 Issue, November 2024

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