Peter:

>Because there is a real scarcity of not just first rate but even competent
>conductors out there, face it....the age of the great conductors ended a
>half century ago.  Toronto has been looking for years!

Fortunately, Montreal has a better orchestra than Toronto, which makes
things easier!  And good conductors are not so rare today: Sawallish,
Casadesus, Chailly, Chung, Davis, Haitink, Giulini, MTT, Slatkin, Abbado,
Rattle, Jarvi (the father and the TWO sons!), Salonen, Wit (underated but
sometimes great!), Neumann, Zinman, etc, etc.  I consider that most of
these conductors are as good as or superior to Dutoit!  Perhaps the real
problem today is that we have more orchestras - especially US orchestras -
than before willing to pay the price to hire excellent conductors.  The
market is just more competitive than before...  But we still have great
conductors among us!

Daniel B