Karl Sollak

Karl Sollak (born October 27, 1956 in Vienna ) is an Austrian conductor .

Life

Karl Sollak began his musical career with the Vienna Boys' Choir and studied the Vienna Horn , piano and conducting with Hans Swarowsky at the Vienna Music Academy .

From 1979 to 1991 he was a répétiteur at the Vienna State Opera and assisted conductors such as Claudio Abbado , Lorin Maazel , Michel Plasson , Leonard Slatkin , Riccardo Muti and James Levine on recordings . As part of the opera studio of the State Opera, he directed the Austrian premiere of Udo Zimmermann's opera White Rose in the Vienna Künstlerhausheater .

He has conducted concerts with the instrumentalists Nelson Freire , Barbara Moser , Itzhak Perlman and the singers Mirella Freni , Renata Scotto , Anna Netrebko , José Carreras and Plácido Domingo .

In 1999 Karl Sollak conducted the comeback concert of the tenor Franco Bonisolli in the Wiener Konzerthaus , which was followed by appearances in Graz, Posen and Vienna ( Musikverein ), together with Franz Grundheber . He also conducted concerts with Cheryl Studer in Wroclaw, with Luis Lima and Mara Zampieri in Paris, as well as with Aga Mikolaj in the USA and Poland and conducted concerts in the Vienna Musikverein. In 2004 he made his debut at the Vienna Volksoper , where he conducted Don Giovanni and La traviata , in Oviedo in 2005 and in Madrid in 2006.

In 1989, Sollak made his US debut with the Minnesota Orchestra . In 1993 he became chief conductor of the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra. In 1997 he conducted the gala concert in honor of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani (with Mirella Freni and Plácido Domingo) at the New York City Opera. During his appearances in the USA and Canada, Sollak has conducted concerts in New York (Avery Fisher Hall), Chicago, Milwaukee, Hartford, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, also with Aga Mikolaj and Jerry Hadley , as well as in Montreal, Toronto and Calgary.

From 1995 onwards, Sollak conducted a dozen concerts with Plácido Domingo. In 1998 he conducted the final concert at Plácido Domingos singing competition Operalia in Hamburg. He made his debut in Japan in June 2000 when he conducted Plácido Domingo's televised Millennium Concert in Tokyo.

Karl Sollak conducted ballet performances at the Vienna State Opera in the 1980s and made guest appearances a. a. at the Washington Opera House, the Finnish National Opera and the Tiroler Landestheater Innsbruck . His opera repertoire includes a. Fidelio , Ariadne on Naxos , L'Italiana in Algeri , I Capuleti ei Montecchi , La Bohème , Tosca and Carmen . He conducted new productions of La traviata at the Washington Opera and Fidelio at the Opera Ireland in Dublin. At the Prague State Opera he directed a new production of Don Giovanni and at the Chattanooga Opera House (USA) Un ballo in maschera . He conducted I Capuleti ei Montecchi at the Tenerife Opera .

At festivals he was a guest at the “Prague Autumn”; the “Festival Carcassonne” in France; the “Mozart Festival” in Woodstock (Illinois), the “Hoffmann Festival” in Poznan / Poland, at festivals in Soria (Spain) and Palma de Mallorca. In 2008, Sollak opened the “Al Bustan Festival” in Beirut with two concerts and made guest appearances in Abu Dhabi, and in 2008 and 2009 in Madrid. In the same year he conducted works by Hiba al Kawas, a contemporary Lebanese composer, in Beirut.

Discography

Karl Sollak conducted the Munich Radio Orchestra for radio recordings with works by Elgar , Stravinsky and Sibelius , an aria record with Ljuba Kazarnovskaja in Moscow and a live CD with the Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss with Aga Mikolaj and the Philharmonic Orchestra Győr. He also directed a CD production with Plácido Domingo (“Placido Domingo live in Seoul”) and a live recording with Franco Bonisolli in Graz.

Web links

• Homepage of Karl Sollak
• Karl Sollak at Allmusic (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Program archive of the Vienna State Opera , accessed on January 7, 2019.