Silvio Varviso

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Silvio Varviso (born February 26, 1924 in Zurich ; † November 1, 2006 in Antwerp ) was a Swiss conductor .

Life

Gravestone of Silvio Varviso-Chabloz on the Hörnli

Varviso studied conducting, piano, violin, clarinet, trumpet and percussion instruments at the Zurich Conservatory . He completed his studies with Clemens Krauss in Vienna . In St. Gallen he made his debut with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Magic Flute, before moving to the Stadttheater Basel in 1962 as musical and artistic director . From 1965 to 1971 Varviso was music director at the Royal Opera in Stockholm , then in the same position from 1972 to 1979 at the Stuttgart Opera . This brought him to work with important directors, for example with Jean-Pierre Ponnelle on Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen or with Götz Friedrich on Claude Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande , Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Così fan tutte , Richard Strauss ' Salome , Wagner's Parsifal and Puccini's La Bohème . As a conductor he was appointed to leading positions in major opera houses in Europe and the USA. Between 1960 and 1980 Silvio Varviso was one of the most famous guest conductors and led almost every famous orchestra in Western Europe, especially when performing operas and at festivals. In the 1960s and 1970s he recorded countless concerts on vinyl. Varviso performed several times with the Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival . He has also directed the Chicago Symphony Orchestra , the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra .

For many years, Varviso was a guest conductor at the Vienna State Opera , the Royal Opera House , the Deutsche Oper Berlin , the Hamburg State Opera , the Bavarian State Opera , the Frankfurt Opera and the Paris Opera . Already in 1961 the conductor made his American debut, first at the San Francisco Opera , later at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where he conducted Gaetano Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor with Joan Sutherland , who also made her debut . From 1969 to 1974 he conducted at the Bayreuth Festival The Flying Dutchman , Lohengrin and The Mastersingers of Nuremberg . In 1983 he returned to the Metropolitan, where he conducted Wagner's Walküre and in the following season Gioachino Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia . From 1991 he was a regular guest conductor at the Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp and Ghent , where he musically supervised a highly acclaimed Puccini cycle in a production by Robert Carsen . Shortly before his death, on September 19, 2006, he conducted Puccini's Tosca in Antwerp . Since the death of his wife, the conductor has lived in seclusion in Basel and on the Côte d'Azur.

Silvio Varviso's grave is in the Hörnli cemetery in Riehen BS.

Honors

Varviso received numerous honors and awards. King Gustav VI. Adolf von Sweden awarded him the title of court conductor, and in Stuttgart he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Prime Minister Lothar Späth .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ State Archives Ludwigsburg
personal data
SURNAME Varviso, Silvio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss conductor
DATE OF BIRTH February 26, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 2006
Place of death Antwerp