Giuseppe Sinopoli

Giuseppe Sinopoli

Giuseppe Sinopoli (born November 2, 1946 in Venice , † April 20, 2001 in Berlin ) was an Italian conductor and composer . From 1984 to 1994 he was chief conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra London, and from 1992 until his death chief conductor of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden .

Life

education

Sinopoli grew up in Messina , Sicily, where he began training as an organist at the local conservatory when he was twelve . At the age of 15 he returned to his hometown Venice. There he studied music at the Conservatory between 1965 and 1967 and - at the request of his father - at the same time at the University of Padua medicine, psychiatry and anthropology . He undertook further composition studies with Bruno Maderna in Darmstadt and Franco Donatoni in Siena, among others . In 1972 he completed his medical studies with a doctorate .

Musical career

He then concentrated entirely on music and was given a lectureship in electronic and contemporary music in Venice. In the same year he began to take conducting courses with Hans Swarowsky in Vienna. In 1975 he founded the Bruno Maderna ensemble for new music . In the 1970s he appeared primarily as a composer; Compositions by him have been heard at festivals for new music.

In 1978 Sinopolis began his career as an opera conductor in Venice with Aida by Giuseppe Verdi . He developed his interpretation of Verdian music in contrast to the performance practice of the time from studying the sources of the original scores; This gave his performances a more transparent orchestral sound and made many previously unheard musical details of the score audible. His performance of the opera Macbeth by the same composer two years later at the Deutsche Oper Berlin , which was committed to the same aesthetic standards, was a great success and is seen as the beginning of his international conducting career, which was now beginning, and which pushed his composing activities into the background.

He made his debut at the Vienna State Opera in 1980 with an acclaimed premiere of Verdi's early work Attila (with Nikolaj Gjaurow , Mara Zampieri , Piero Cappuccilli ; directed by Giulio Chazalettes ) (the recording has since been released on CD). In 1982 he conducted Macbeth there (with Renato Bruson , Zampieri and Nikolaj Gjaurow; directed by Peter Wood ), followed in 1986 by Puccini's Manon Lescaut (with Mirella Freni , Peter Dvorsky , Bernd Weikl , Kurt Rydl ; directed by Otto Schenk ). His last Viennese premiere was Richard Strauss' opera Die Frau ohne Schatten (1999, directed by Robert Carsen ).

From 1985 onwards Sinopoli conducted every year at the Bayreuth Festival : 1985 to 1989 the Tannhäuser , 1990 to 1993 the Flying Dutchman (directed by Dieter Dorn ), 1994 to 1999 the Parsifal (directed by Wolfgang Wagner ) and in 2000 the new production Ring des Nibelungen (directed by Jürgen Flimm ). After Sinopoli's death, his Hungarian colleague Ádám Fischer took over the ring .

Important milestones in Sinopoli's career were:

• 1983 to 1987 chief conductor of the Orchestra dell'Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome
• 1984 to 1994 chief conductor and from 1987 musical director of the Philharmonia Orchestra London
• In 1990 Sinopoli was to become chief conductor at the Deutsche Oper Berlin; but he resigned from his contract before the start of his term of office
• from 1992 chief conductor of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden

death

Sinopoli suffered a heart attack on April 20, 2001 while conducting the opera Aida at the Deutsche Oper Berlin as a gesture of reconciliation for the opera director Götz Friedrich , who had since died. He was buried in the Campo Verano cemetery in Rome. He left a wife, the pianist Silvia Cappellini Sinopoli, and two sons.

Appreciation

In 1991/92 he was awarded the Premio Abbiati .

As a conductor, Sinopoli's musical focus was on the operas by Verdi and Puccini and the German and Austrian musical traditions of the 19th and 20th centuries from Schubert to Wagner , Mahler and R. Strauss to the Second Vienna School .

Until shortly before his sudden death, Giuseppe Sinopoli prepared the defense of a dissertation in the subject of Near Eastern Archeology on the subject of "The Assyrian Culture in Mesopotamia ".

festival

The city of Taormina in Sicily (or the Taormina Arte agency ) has been dedicating a festival to the memory of Giuseppe Sinopoli since 2005, which takes place every October. From 1989 to 1997 Sinopoli was the film architect of the arts department of the Taorminer Kirchweih festivals. At this Giuseppe Sinopoli Festival, Sinopolis is not only thought of as a musician, conductor and composer, but also as a physician, archaeologist and spiritual person. The festival thus brings together music, theater, literature and the visual arts in gatherings, exhibitions, publications and of course concerts, to which important orchestras come every year. On the occasion of the first Giuseppe Sinopoli Festival, the Sinopoli Chamber Orchestra was founded in collaboration with the “Arcangelo Corelli” Conservatory in Messina , in which young talents, students and teachers from the Peloritan Conservatory alternate in terms of musical composition and mainly perform compositions by Giuseppe Sinopoli .

Works

Compositions (selection)

• Sintassi Teatrali (1968): “ Frammento n. 48 da Alcmane”, “Frammenti n.2-4-80 da Saffo”, “Stasimo IV ed Esodo da Edipo Re di Sofocle”.
• Experiences (1968)
• 5 studi su 3 parametri , electronic music (1969)
• Musica per calcolatori analogici , electronic music (1969)
• Structures for piano (1969)
• Sunyata , theme with variations for soprano and string quintet to the text of the Hridaya Sutra (1970).
• Numquid et unum for harpsichord and flute (1970), dedicated to Franco Donatoni .
• Isoritmi , electronic music (1971)
• Opus Daleth for orchestra (premiered in 1971 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice under the direction of Ettore Gracis)
• Opus Ghimel for chamber orchestra (1971)
• Opus Schir for mezzo-soprano and instruments, on texts by Rolando Damiani (1971)
• Numquid for oboe, cor anglais and oboe d'amore (1972), dedicated to Lothar Faber.
• Hecklephon for piano, harpsichord and celesta (1972)
• Per clavicembalo (1972), dedicated to Mariolina De Robertis
• Isoritmi II - Volts , electronic music (1972)
• Symphonie imaginaire for vocal soloists, ten boy sopranos, three choirs and three orchestras (1973)
• Piano sonata for piano (1977), dedicated to Katia Wittlich
• Piano concerto for piano and orchestra (1974)
• Souvenirs à la mémoire for two sopranos, countertenor and orchestra (1974), dedicated to Harry Halbreich
• Pour un livre à Venise for orchestra (1975). Prima raccolta: Costanzo Porta I - Contrappunto primo (dal Mottetto Gloriosa Virgo Caecilia di Costanzo Porta) II - Homage to Costanzo Porta III - Canzone “La Gerometta” (doppio coro) (da Costanzo Porta).
• Tombeau d'Armor I for orchestra (1976 at the Teatro La Fenice)
• Requiem Hashshirim for a cappella choir (1976), dedicated to Paul Beusen.
• Archeology City Requiem for orchestra (1976) - premiered in Paris on January 31, 1977 for the inauguration of the Center Georges Pompidou.
• Tombeau d'Armor II for large orchestra (1977)
• Tombeau d'Armor III for violoncello and orchestra (1977)
• Quartetto for string quartet (1977)
• Chamber concerto for piano, wind instruments, percussion, harp, celesta and harpsichord (1977-78)
• Lou Salomé . Opera. Libretto: Karl Dietrich Gräwe (first performance 1981 at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich)

Recordings

Numerous CD recordings by the conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli have been released by Deutsche Grammophon and Teldec .

book

• Parsifal in Venice . Roman, Claassen Verlag, Berlin 2001 (posthumously; the original Italian edition was published in 1993), ISBN 3-546-00252-0

literature

• Stephan Hörner :  Sinopoli, Giuseppe. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 467 f. ( Digitized version ).

Web links

• Literature by and about Giuseppe Sinopoli in the catalog of the German National Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ knerger.de: The grave of Giuseppe Sinopoli
2. ^ Giuseppe Sinopoli: composer, conductor, archaeologist: Volume 1: Paths of life - www.theaterforschung.de. Retrieved November 12, 2016 . 
3. ↑ Homepage of the Sinopoli Festival Taormina ( Memento of the original from June 28, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.