Music Guests from Leipzig

Music guests from Leipzig

Knowing when and where Luciano Pavarotti first sang “Nessun dorma” onstage in a performance of Puccini’s “Turandot” may be handy on “Jeopardy.”

The answer comes from conductor Riccardo Chailly, who will lead Leipzig’s Gewandhaus, the world’s oldest orchestra, in two concerts in Davies Hall this week. The Gewandhaus was formed in the 1740s, two dozen years before Beethoven’s birth.

Chailly, meanwhile, turns 57 Saturday — the day before the first San Francisco concert. On this tour, he returns to The City for the first time in 33 years.

As he speaks about that first-and-only appearance here, Chailly provides the quiz answer, without prompting: “It is a great pleasure to return to San Francisco for the first time. I am coming back still with a fresh memory of the ‘Turandot’ production I conducted as a young fellow, with Luciano Pavarotti and Montserrat Caballé making sensational role debuts in the Jean-Pierre Ponnelle production.”

More about music guests from Leipzig here.