MUSIC

Claudio Abbado says his appointment this week as conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic will not interfere with his post as musical director of the Vienna State Opera. “I am profoundly honored. Naturally I accept the appointment but I won’t leave Vienna,” the 56-year-old Abbado said in an interview with the Rome newspaper Il Messaggero. Abbado, successor to the late Herbert von Karajan, also said that he did not expect to become Berlin’s chief conductor for life like his predecessor.