Gustavo Dudamel, Superstar Conductor, Is to Lead Paris Opera

In a coup, the venerable company has hired as its next music director the rare classical artist to have crossed into pop-culture celebrity.

In a coup for the venerable Paris Opera, founded in 1669 by Louis XIV, the company announced on Friday that the superstar conductor Gustavo Dudamel would be its next music director. The musical leader of the Los Angeles Philharmonic since 2009 and the rare classical artist to have crossed into pop-culture celebrity, Dudamel has led only a single production in Paris: “La Bohème,” in 2017. And while he has dipped his toe into the operatic repertory in Los Angeles, at the Metropolitan Opera and elsewhere, he has been largely known as a symphonic conductor. At a news conference in Paris on Friday, Dudamel said his aim was “to build on the success of the past, honoring the extraordinary history of the Paris Opera, but at the same time looking toward the future: working with new composers, new choreographers.”