Ioan Holender

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Ioan Holender (born July 18, 1935 in Timișoara , Romania , as Johann Hollaender ) is a Romanian- Austrian singer and artist agent . From 1992 to 2010 he was director of the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Volksoper (until 1996) and from 2005 to 2015 artistic director of the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest.

Ioan Holender (2011)

Life

Holender comes from a Jewish entrepreneurial family. His father had a jam and vinegar factory in Timisoara, which was expropriated in 1948. Ioan grew up trilingual: Romanian, German, Hungarian. In order to be admitted to study, he first worked for a year on the tram, then studied mechanical engineering (specializing in steam engines) at the Timișoara Polytechnic . As a participant in the student uprising in Timișoara in 1956 , he was de-registered and thus had no access to other universities in the country.

Holender then worked as a tennis trainer and assistant director. Since his mother was already living in Vienna , he was allowed to travel there in 1959 as part of the family reunification. Instead of the originally planned technical studies, he began to study singing. After graduating, he worked as an opera baritone and concert singer, first at the Stadttheater Klagenfurt and later in St. Pölten .

In 1966 Holender joined the Starka theater agency , which he took over after a few years and which ultimately became known as the Holender Opera Agency .

In 1988 he was appointed General Secretary of the Vienna State Opera by the designated director Eberhard Waechter from 1991 onwards. This led to some fierce criticism in the media, because Holender was accused of negotiating contractual obligations with Claus Helmut Drese's incumbent state opera management and at the same time already helping his successor. Those singers, it was said, whose engagement he had conveyed to the State Opera himself, he would now also criticize as members of the future opera leadership. (At that time Waechter planned to restrict the system of evening contracts for guest artists and to replace it with a stronger ensemble structure and longer-term guest contracts.) There were also suspicions that Holender would negotiate singing contracts with his own agency for engagements for Waechter's seasons. Eventually Holender withdrew from his opera agency, which was later sold within his own family.

After Waechter's unexpected death in March 1992, Holender was appointed director of the State Opera on April 1 of the same year. For four years he also led the Vienna Volksoper , of which he was made an honorary member in 1996.

At the State Opera, Holender made considerable corrections to Waechter's conservative concept within a short period of time; For example, he had the titles of the operas again posted in the original language - Le nozze di Figaro instead of The Marriage of Figaro - and softened the ensemble principle by reinforcing short-term evening contracts. He also hired exponents of modern opera productions such as Herbert Wernicke , Hans Neuenfels , Willy Decker and David Pountney .

Holender put aside almost completely Waechter's plan to rehearse older productions under the direction of the respective directors at the State Opera. The repertoire he plays is essentially based on the new productions of his time as director, supplemented by well-known key works or some older productions, the lower cost of which made it easier to organize the program. In addition, Holender - like Claus Helmut Drese and Herbert von Karajan before him - increasingly relied on co-productions - for example with the Salzburg Festival , La Scala in Milan and the Paris Opera . Some productions of the Vienna State Opera were sold or loaned to other opera houses, for example to the Bavarian State Opera in Munich , the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and the Metropolitan Opera in New York .

Holender's contract was renewed three times and ended on August 31, 2010. He is the director with the longest tenure since 1869, ie. H. since the establishment of the house. In Berlin , Holender was temporarily responsible for the program of the Deutsche Oper after the director Udo Zimmermann left the company prematurely . Holender is a lecturer at the Institute for Theater, Film and Media Studies at the University of Vienna . He is also a board member of the European Music Theater Academy .

In terms of culture , he has worked as a journalist for the television channel Servus TV since the 2010s , as a presenter and designer of the show kulTOUR with Holender . The program is broadcast every Thursday evening and every Sunday morning on the station and is available for a certain time in the station's media library .

In November 2011 Ioan Holender was elected chairman of the Timişoara Capitală Culturală Europeană association ( Timişoara European Capital of Culture ). From 2005 to 2015 he was the Artistic Director of the George Enescu Festival, which is held biennially in Bucharest (Romania) in memory of the Romanian national composer, violinist, pianist and conductor George Enescu . The festival in autumn 2007 bore his signature for the first time.

Private life

In his first marriage Holender was married to Ariane Hollaender-Calix, an actress and former professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna . The lawyer Adrian Hollaender comes from this marriage . Today he is married to a second marriage, from this marriage there are a son and a daughter. Holender is the cousin of the Austrian director Robert Dornhelm .

Awards and honors

Works

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ proof of citizenship 28945 of 19 June 1973 and Corrigendum of 7 June 1978 concerning the purchase agreement of 18 July 1977
  2. ↑ Servus TV - kulTOUR media library with Holender accessed on June 15, 2020
  3. ↑ adz.ro , Robert Tari: With Ioan Holender to the cultural capital. The association "Timişoara Capitală Culturală" has elected its president
  4. ↑ Holender: "Enescu" Festival, a brand encompassing all that's best in today's Romania thanks to public enthusiasm. September 4, 2015, accessed January 27, 2017 .
  5. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)
  6. ↑ Juwelier Wagner : Ring of Honor of the Vienna State Opera ( Memento of the original from February 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.juwelier-wagner.at 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. , February 2004
  7. ↑ wien.diplo.de ( Memento of the original from October 21, 2011 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. , German Embassy Vienna : Director of the Vienna State Opera iR Ioan Holender awarded the Great Cross of Merit , October 13, 2011, accessed on November 11, 2011 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.wien.diplo.de
personal data
SURNAME Holender, Ioan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hollaender, Johann (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Romanian-Austrian singer and artist agent
DATE OF BIRTH July 18, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Timișoara , Kingdom of Romania