Gustavo Dudamel is Paris Opera’s next music director. What does this mean for L.A.?

Gustavo Dudamel will become music director of Paris Opera beginning Aug. 1, the company is expected to announce Friday morning, and Los Angeles will share the conductor with the City of Light for at least five years. “I am incredibly inspired and excited by Dudamel’s appointment in Paris,” L.A. Phil Chief Executive Chad Smith said in an interview, taking great pride that “the L.A. Phil provided Dudamel with the opportunity to grow into a major opera conductor.” “With Paris as a place where Dudamel can delve more deeply into opera, it creates a perfect balance with his orchestral home in L.A.,” Smith added. Dudamel’s appointment by Paris Opera’s new general director, Alexander Neef, clearly marks a new vision for a company that traces its beginnings to the birth of the Paris Opera Academy in 1669. That’s when the L.A. Phil’s legendary executive director at the time, Ernest Fleischmann, suddenly announced that he had accepted the post of head of Paris Opera — only to change his mind 10 days later. Among Mortier’s first projects in Paris was a staging of the L.A. Phil’s “Tristan Project,” a collaboration between Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen, director Peter Sellars and video artist Bill Viola.