The Metropolitan Opera, representing arguably the most traditionalist musical form in an already innovation-wary field, has twenty-three conductors on rotation this season, all of whom are men. And many women in opera who are credited as assistant conductors are often restricted to piano accompaniment, the recently-appointed Chicago Opera Theater music director Lidiya Yankovskaya told me. Of the top twenty world orchestras as ranked by a panel of esteemed music critics—which Gramophone published in 2008—not one has a female conductor on staff. Some, including the Vienna Philharmonic, do have female guest conductors in rotation.
Source : When Women Take the Baton
