Sunday’s U.S. Open men’s final will feature the tournament’s two remaining headliners. As major productions go, you’d also be hard-pressed to find a stronger opening act. Before the match, Arthur Ashe Stadium will turn into a 25,000-seat concert hall as Grammy-winning opera baritone Will Liverman performs “America the Beautiful/Lift Every Voice and Sing.” He’ll be accompanied on piano by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Metropolitan Opera music director, who also directs the orchestras in Philadelphia and his hometown of Montreal.
As if he didn’t have enough jobs, Nezet-Seguin recently finished up an as adviser on the forthcoming Bradley Cooper film “Maestro,” a biopic of Leonard Bernstein. The irony: Nézet-Séguin is the anti-maestro, a creative force without the towering ego.
A conductor who operates in his own key, Nezet-Seguin, 48, comes to rehearsal clad in Jordans and hoodies, his tattoos poking out from his rolled-up sleeves. Recalling a certain sport, he takes pains to show that opera and classical music is not just the preserve of the elite and the merchant class.
