Michael Andreas Gielen (20 July 1927 – 8 March 2019) was an Austrian conductor and composer known for promoting contemporary music in opera and concert. Principally active in Europe, his performances are characterized by precision and vivacity, aiding his ability to interpret the complex contemporary music he specialized in.
He first worked in Buenos Aires, where he lived with his family between 1938 and 1950. In Europe, he first worked in Vienna and then in Sweden as the Generalmusikdirektor (GMD) of the Royal Swedish Opera. He conducted notable world premieres such as György Ligeti's Requièm, Karlheinz Stockhausen's Carré, and Bernd Alois Zimmermann's opera Die Soldaten and his Requiem für einen jungen Dichter. He directed the Oper Frankfurt from 1977 to 1987, installing more contemporary operas, winning stage directors such as Hans Neuenfels and Ruth Berghaus, and reviving operas such as Schreker's Die Gezeichneten. During his era, the company became one of the leading operas.
Gielen was born in Dresden to Rose (née Steuermann) and Josef Gielen [de].[1] His father was a theatre and opera director from 1924 at the Staatstheater Dresden, who staged the premiere of Kaiser/Weill's Der Protagonist at the Semperoper in 1926. His mother Rose came from a Jewish family in Sambor (then Austria-Hungary, now Ukraine). She was an actress who had given up acting when their first child Carola was born, but appeared occasionally, for example as a speaker in the premiere of Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire in Dresden in 1919, rehearsed with her brother Eduard Steuermann.[1][2][3] The football player Zygmunt Steuermann was their younger brother.[4] The boy Michael first attended a reformed school from 1934 until it was closed by the Nazis. Both children were baptized and raised Catholic to counter Nazi indoctrination.[1]
Clemens Krauss called Josef Gielen to the Staatsoper Berlin in 1936, where Michael attended primary school for a year, and then the Kaiserin-Augusta-Gymnasium.[1] When his father's contract was dissolved in 1937,[1] he found a position at the Vienna Burgtheater. The family followed there in 1938.[1] Michael attended a grammar school and took piano lessons. Josef Gielen successfully staged at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1938 and 1939, and managed to get immigration papers for his wife and the two children. In 1940, the family left for Argentina, leaving most of their belongings behind.[1]
In 1950, Gielen moved to Vienna where his father had become director of the Burgtheater. Michael Gielen was conductor and répétiteur, who conducted at the Wiener Staatsoper from 1954 to 1960,[1] assisting conductors such as Karl Böhm, Herbert Karajan and Clemens Krauss.[5] He conducted contemporary music outside the opera house.[6]
Gielen (right) after the premiere of Ein Traumspiel by Aribert Reimann (centre), June 1965
From 1977 to 1987, Gielen was GMD at the Oper Frankfurt, where he worked with the dramaturge Klaus Zehelein towards more contemporary operas.[1][8] In 1979, he revived Franz Schreker's opera Die Gezeichneten there, which had premiered in Frankfurt in 1918.[9] During his time in Frankfurt, later called the Gielen Era,[6] he collaborated with stage directors such as Hans Neuenfels for Verdi's Aida and Ruth Berghaus for Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.[10] The time was described as the Ära Gielen/Zehelein (Gielen/Zehelein era)[1] and made Frankfurt an internationally recognised opera.[5]
He demonstrated a mastery of the most complex contemporary scores, and conducted many premieres, including Helmut Lachenmann's Fassade and Klangschatten – mein Saitenspiel, György Ligeti's Requiem, and Karlheinz Stockhausen's Carré. He premiered Zimmermann's Requiem für einen jungen Dichter in Düsseldorf in 1969.[14] In 1973 he recorded Schoenberg's opera Moses und Aron, used as a soundtrack for the film Moses und Aron.[6]
In October 2014, Gielen announced his retirement from conducting for health reasons, particularly seriously deteriorated eyesight.[15] He died in Mondsee, Austria, on 8 March 2019 of pneumonia.[8][16][5][17]
Recordings
With the SWR, Gielen recorded various symphonies, including a complete cycle of both Mahler and Beethoven,[18][19] as well as select ones by Brahms.[18] Recordings of later composers include works by Bruckner, Stravinsky,[19] Schoenberg, Berg and Webern; his recording of Moses und Aron is its first commercial stereo recording.[18] Among the many works by modern and contemporary composers he recorded were those by Kagel, Ligeti, Nono, Zimmermann and Rihm.[18]
His recordings—and conducting in general—are noted for their relentless precision, exactness and veracity over sentimentality. These characteristics were particularly helpful in performing complex contemporary works.[18][19]
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