Klemperer, Otto

Conductor

born: 14.05.1885 in Breslau

died: 06.07.1973 in Zurich

Klemperer, the son of a Jewish family, spent his youth in Hamburg. His training took him from the Dr. Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt to Berlin, where he completed his studies at the Stern Conservatory in 1905.

On Gustav Mahler's recommendation, he became Kapellmeister at the Deutsches Landestheater in Prague in 1907. After engagements in Hamburg, Barmen and Strasbourg, he joined the Cologne Opera in 1917, where he became general music director in 1923. He converted to Catholicism in 1919.

In 1924, Carl Hagemann appointed him general music director at the Wiesbaden Theater. Artistically, he had a completely free hand, as Hagemann wanted a "Kapellmeister-director" as head of the opera. The opening premiere in 1924, Beethoven's "Fidelio" with cubic blocks as a stage set and choristers in white make-up, shocked the audience, but the national critics praised the musical-dramatic unity of the performance and compared it to Mahler's highlights in Vienna. A contemporary piece followed with Stravinsky's "Soldier's Tale". The other operas under Klemperer were new productions or revivals that he himself supervised.

In old age, he described his time in Wiesbaden as the happiest of his life. The Klemperer family lived here in a villa in the Nero Valley.

A highlight was Mozart's "Don Giovanni" in 1925, which cemented Klemperer's reputation as an opera innovator. In 1926, shortly after the Dresden premiere, he conducted Hindemith's "Cardillac", making a significant contribution to the work's success. During this time, he gave guest performances in Berlin, the Soviet Union and the USA.

In 1927, he became director of the Kroll Opera in Berlin. There he offered contemporary composers such as Janáček, Ernst Krenek, Schönberg and sensational productions of Mozart operas. Klemperer moved to the Berlin State Opera in 1931. In 1933, he was banned from performing as a "cultural Bolshevik". He emigrated to the USA, where he conducted the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra.

He returned to Europe in 1947, initially to the Budapest Opera. He became chief conductor in London in 1959 and in New York in 1964. He lived in Switzerland from 1954. He converted to the Jewish faith in 1970. He ended his career in 1972 due to illness.