Michael Morgan (conductor) Conservatory of Music, he spent a summer at the Oberlin College Conservatory at Tanglewood. There he was a student of Gunther Schuller and Seiji Ozawa, and it was at that time that he first worked with Leonard Bernstein. In 1980, he won first prize in the Hans Swarovsky International Conductors Competition in Vienna, Austria and became Assistant Conductor of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, under Leonard Slatkin. His operatic debut was in 1982 at the Vienna State Opera in Mozart's "The Abduction from the Seraglio". In 1986, Sir Georg Solti chose him to become the Assistant Conductor of the Chicago
Christine Weidinger among others. In 1988 she performed the role of Eupaforice in Carl Heinrich Graun's "Montezuma" at the Spoleto Festival USA. After a 16-year absence, she returned to the Metropolitan Opera in 1992 to sing the title role in Rossini's "Semiramide". Some of the many other roles Weidinger has sung on stage are Arminda in "La finta giardiniera", the Countess in "Le comte Ory", Gilda in "Rigoletto", Konstanze in "The Abduction from the Seraglio", Leonora in "Il trovatore", the title role in Rossini's "Armida", Armida in Handel's "Rinaldo" (with Marilyn Horne) and Amenaide in "Tancredi". She also performed the demanding Donizetti