Lothar Wallerstein

Lothar Wallerstein (born November 6, 1882 in Prague , Austria-Hungary , † November 14, 1949 in New Orleans ) was an American director , conductor and opera director of Austrian origin.

Live and act

Richard Strauss and Wallerstein

The son of the cantor Moritz Wallerstein (1847–1906) and his wife Bertha, b. Reininger, studied medicine, art and music at the universities of Prague and Munich and was awarded a Dr. med. PhD. From 1908 to 1910 he attended the Conservatory in Geneva and then worked as a répétiteur and director at the Royal Court Theater in Dresden . Subsequently he was Kapellmeister and director in Poznan until 1914 . After the First World War, Wallerstein was senior director at the Breslau Opera House and later at the Duisburg Theater (1922). Together with Clemens Krauss , who was artistic director of the Frankfurt Opera from 1924 to 1929 , he created a new, staging-oriented music theater. He also directed the opera class at the Hoch Conservatory .

From 1927 to 1938 Wallerstein was director and senior director of the Vienna State Opera . In addition to more than 70 other works he produced here the first performances of Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex (1928) and Idomeneo by Mozart (1931) in collaboration with Richard Strauss full revision created. From 1929 he was also active at the Salzburg Festival . In 1931 he staged five operas here, including Rosenkavalier , Die Zauberflöte and Fidelio .

After Austria was annexed to Nazi Germany , Wallerstein had to go into exile because of his Jewish descent. He founded an opera school in The Hague , but had to flee further to the USA in 1940, where he worked as director of the Metropolitan Opera New York from 1941 to 1946 . After the war he returned to Austria for several productions. He died during a guest director in New Orleans .

literature

• Götz Klaus Kende: In memory of Lothar Wallerstein (1882-1949) In: Richard Strauss-Blätter . 8, pp. 6-10 (1982).
• Walter Pass , Gerhard Scheit, Wilhelm Svoboda: Orpheus in exile. The expulsion of Austrian music 1938–1945 . Publishing house for social criticism , Vienna 1995, ISBN 385115200X .
• Stefan Jaeger (ed.): The conductors' book of Atlantis. An encyclopedia. Atlantis, Zurich 1986, p. 375, ISBN 3254001060 .
• Susanne Blumesberger, Michael Doppelhofer, Gabriele Mauthe: Handbook of Austrian authors of Jewish origin from the 18th to the 20th century . Volume 3: S – Z, Register. Edited by the Austrian National Library. Saur, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-598-11545-8 , p. 1423.

Web links

• Literature by and about Lothar Wallerstein in the catalog of the German National Library
• Lothar Wallerstein in the Lexicon of Persecuted Musicians of the Nazi Era (LexM)