Michael Hofstetter

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Michael Hofstetter (born September 6, 1961 in Munich ) is a German conductor . He has been director of the International Gluck Festival in Nuremberg since 2020 .

Live and act

Places of work

Michael Hofstetter comes from Munich and studied organ, piano and conducting at the Richard Strauss Conservatory in Munich . He began his career at the theaters in Wiesbaden (Kapellmeister), was chief conductor of the choir and orchestra of the Ludwigsburg Palace Festival from 2005 to 2012 and also chief conductor of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra from 2006 to 2012 . From 2012 to 2019 he was GMD in Gießen , also from 2012 to 2016 chief conductor of the recreation - Großes Orchester Graz .

Michael Hofstetter was professor for orchestral conducting and early music at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. Today he is regarded as a conductor with an international reputation as an expert in authentic performance practice and as a baroque specialist.

Hofstetter was and is a guest at many internationally important opera houses, orchestras and festivals, including the Hamburg and Bavarian State Operas, the Stuttgart Opera , the Deutsche Oper Berlin , the State Theater Hanover , the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, ​​the Welsh National Opera , the English National Opera , the Houston Grand Opera , the Canadian Opera Company Toronto, the Styriarte Graz, the Salzburg Festival, etc. a. m. Hofstetter has directed several musical programs for German television.

Since 1998 he has conducted regularly at the Handel Festival in Karlsruhe , most recently in Riccardo Primo in early 2014 . In the fall of 2008, a production of Berlioz's opera Béatrice et Bénédict took him to the Houston Grand Opera, where he returned in 2012 to conduct Beethoven's Fidelio ; in spring 2009 he conducted Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the Welsh National Opera in Cardiff, 2013 Verdi's La traviata in a production by Peter Konwitschny at the English National Opera in London.

In 2019 Michael Hofstetter succeeded Rainer Mennicken as director of the International Gluck Festival in Nuremberg , after conducting Gluck's opera Artaserse as part of this festival in 2018 on the occasion of the reopening of the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth .

Awards and reception

For the new production of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde at the Dortmund Opera House in 2000, he was nominated as conductor of the year in the annual critics' survey of the specialist magazine Opernwelt . Further nominations were made in 2011 for the production Didone abbandonata by Johann Adolph Hasse at the Prinzregententheater in Munich and most recently in 2013 for Agrippina by Georg Friedrich Händel and Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber at the Stadttheater Gießen .

Hofstetter's recordings of the Schlossfestspiel opera productions from 2005 to 2007, which were released on the OehmsClassics label, were highly praised by the press . Further CD recordings have been made by cpo , Virgin Classics and Berlin Classics, and numerous DVD recordings are available from Arthaus Musik , Sony and Deutsche Grammophon . His recording of Rossini's arias and overtures, which was released in April 2008, was recognized by the French Académie de Disque Lyrique . A CD with arias from operas by Johann Adolph Hasse, which Hofstetter recorded with the Munich court orchestra and the Romanian countertenor Valer Sabadus , was selected for the 2012 German Record Critics' list of the best .

Michael Hofstetter was honored with the Robert Stolz Medal for his mature understanding and personal commitment to the art of operetta . In May 2008 he received the Horst Stein Prize , which he was awarded for his “excellent work as director of the Ludwigsburg Festival”.

Awards

  • Robert Stolz Medal (gold)
  • Prize of the Richard Strauss Society in Munich
  • Horst Stein Prize

literature

  • Michael Hofstetter: The historical never ends. Sources and actors in historically informed performance practice. In: Susanne Rode-Breymann u. Sven Limbeck (Ed.): Fading and Eternal. A thousand years of music memory 800–1800. Herzog August Library, Wolfenbüttel 2011, ISBN 978-3-44706596-2 .
  • Eckhard Roelcke: The baton. Conductors talk about their instrument. Zsolnay, Vienna 2000, ISBN 3-552-04985-1 .
  • Julia Spinola: The great conductors of our time. Henschel, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89487-480-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1961 according to his own statement in a ( page no longer available , search in web archives: interview of HR2 )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.hr-online.de
  2. ↑ Spinola 2005, p. 232.
personal data
SURNAME Hofstetter, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German conductor
DATE OF BIRTH September 6, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich