Madrid Opera Woos British Conductor

A British conductor regarded as one of the most gifted of his generation is being wooed by Madrid's Royal Theater opera house, which wants him to take over as its music director.

Oxford-born Daniel Harding, 33, has been subjected to a bombardment of praise and pressure after travelling to Madrid this week to conduct the London Symphony Orchestra.

Spanish media reported that Harding, who started his career as a teenage protege of Sir Simon Rattle, was considering taking up the post. "I am prepared to listen to all proposals," he told El País newspaper. "I love opera but until now I've focused on symphony orchestras."

El País's classical music critic, Agustí Fancelli, threw his weight behind the attempt to hire Harding in an open letter to the conductor. "You don't know how grateful we are that you ... would consider the possibility of taking the musical directorship of the Royal Theater," he wrote. "Our quiet lyrical waters urgently need a certain amount of agitation or, even, the kind of tsunami that you might bring."

He added Harding may find some Spanish customs difficult to deal with, especially the audience's apparent inability to turn off mobile phones. Harding is a principle guest conductor at the London Symphony Orchestra and is music director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.