MILAN – Prominent pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim has canceled a piano recital at the Opera de Monte-Carlo due to the effects of a serious neurological condition, the opera house announced on Wednesday.
Barenboim expressed his regret in a message to the audience, saying that “despite my best efforts, I have not yet built up the muscular strength to perform piano recital programs.”
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Barenboim was diagnosed last year with the condition, which forced him step down in January as music director at the Berlin State Opera after three decades.
The 80-year-old musician has returned to conducting, appearing in Milan, Berlin and Vienna since mid-February, and he noted that his health “has improved greatly over the past weeks.”
During the Berlin concerts, he accompanied soprano Cecilia Bartoli on the piano, and in Vienna performed a piano duet with Martha Argerich, whom he has known since childhood.
He said he was saddened to cancel the upcoming recital, but added that with his “health improving, I am very much set upon returning to the Opera de Monte-Carlo on the first possible occasion, be it as a pianist or a conductor.”
Bartoli, who is the Monte Carlo opera's director, said the performance on Friday had been planned as a homage to Barenboim's 80th birthday last Nov. 15. Violinist Maxim Vengerov will step in, playing music by Beethoven, Franck and Tchaikovsky with pianist Roustem Saitkoulov.