Abbado, Claudio(bMilan,26 June 1933).Italianconductor. Son of the violinist and teacher Michelangelo Abbado, he heard DebussysNocturnesas a small boy and immediately had the ambition to become a conductor. Soon after the war he attended rehearsals by Furtwngler and Toscanini in Milan; his quiet, undemonstrative manner on the podium derives in part from his aversion to the dictatorial approach he witnessed in Toscanini. He first learnt the piano with his father, and studied at the Milan Conservatory until 1955, before going to the Vienna Music Academy to study conducting with Hans Swarowsky. In 1958 he won the Koussevitzky Competition, and a series of concert and operatic engagements in Italy followed. His career was further boosted when he won the Mitropoulos Prize in 1963 and worked for five months with the New York PO. His international success was rapid, and led to his first appearances at the Salzburg Festival in 1965, where he conducted Giacomo ManzonisAtomtod, and to his first recordings. Although Abbados speciality was initially 20th-century music, he was quickly welcomed as a clear-headed interpreter of the central Classical and Romantic repertory, with symphonies by Beethoven and Mendelssohn among his first recordings.Abbados dbut as an operatic conductor took place in Trieste in 1958, with ProkofievsThe Love for Three Oranges, and throughout his career he has sought to include 20th-century operas alongside the regular repertory. His 1960 dbut at La Scala was in a concert celebrating the 300th anniversary of the birth of Alessandro Scarlatti; the following year he began to conduct opera there, and in 1968 he directed the opening performance of the Scala season, BellinisI Capuleti e i Montecchi. The same year he made his Covent Garden dbut withDon Carlos, the first time he had conducted Verdi. Notable among his later successes at Covent Garden wasBoris Godunovin 1983. He became resident conductor of La Scala in 1969, music director two years later, and chief conductor from 1980 to 1986. During his years there he was always adventurous in developing the repertory, reviving rare Italian operas, introducing new ones and giving special attention to Berg, Musorgsky, Debussy and Rossini. He took the La Scala company on tour in Europe (including memorable performances ofSimon Boccanegraat Covent Garden in 1976), the USA and Japan. Abbado made his dbut at the Vienna Staatsoper (withSimon Boccanegra) in 1984, and two years later he became the companys music director. His successes in Vienna have included new productions ofWozzeck,Khovanshchina,Un ballo in mascheraandDon Carlos, as well as RossinisLitaliana in AlgeriandIl viaggio a Reims, the opera he had rescued from total neglect in performances at the 1984 Pesaro Festival with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe; the recording he made then was among his most successful ever. With the same orchestra he also conducted SchubertsFierrabras, both in the opera house (1988) and on disc.Abbado became principal conductor of the LSO in 1979 and was music director from 1983 to 1986, making many recordings with the orchestra. From 1982 to 1985 he was principal guest conductor of the Chicago SO, and in 1990 he became chief conductor of the Berlin PO in succession to Karajan. During his years in that post he has effectively sustained the orchestras high standards while introducing considerably more 20th-century music into its programmes. In 1999 he announced that he would be leaving his Berlin post in 2002.Abbado has always devoted special attention to the work of young musicians. He founded the European Community Youth Orchestra in 1978 and has remained music director, touring with it on many occasions. He is also founder and music director of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, involving musicians from outside the European Community, and artistic director of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, founded by former members of the European Community Youth Orchestra. Abbados recording career spans a wide repertory, embracing the complete symphonies of Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Mendelssohn and Schubert, the complete orchestral works of Ravel, many contemporary works (including NonosComo una ola de fuerza y luz, written for him and Maurizio Pollini) and over a dozen complete opera recordings, among them outstanding readings ofLitaliana in Algeri,Simon Boccanegra,Boris Godunov,WozzeckandPellas et Mlisande. Quiet and unflamboyant, he rarely fails to draw exceptionally taut, fresh and refined playing from orchestras, although his interpretations of the standard classics tend to be reliably direct rather than distinctive. His direction of opera is generally compelling in its clarity, rhythmic vitality and command of structure. Like most of his younger Italian colleagues, he consistently avoids the vulgarities of the old Italian tradition and insists on a scholarly approach to texts.BIBLIOGRAPHYF.Rosti, ed.:Musica maestri! Il direttore dorchestra tramito e mestiere(Milan,1985)J.L.Holmes:Conductors: a Record Collectors Guide(London,1988), 1316R.Chesterman, ed.:Conductors in Conversation(London,1990)R.Cowan:Abbado in Berlin,Gramophone, lxxi/June (1994), 1719J.Allison:Claudio Abbado,Opera, xlix (1998), 76875EDWARD GREENFIELD