Austrian conductor Stefan Soltesz has died after collapsing in the middle of a concert in Munich, the German city’s opera house announced on Saturday.
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It’s with “consternation and deep sadness (that) the Bavarian Opera has to announce the death of Stefan Soltesz”, he wrote in a press release. The conductor died last night “after collapsing while leading The silent woman by Richard Strauss at the National Theater” in Munich, added the Bavarian Opera.
The artist collapsed from his desk, in front of the public and the musicians, at the end of the first act. After about thirty minutes of interruption, a staff of the Opera came to announce that the conductor could not continue the representation and that the show was canceled.
No details on the cause of his death were immediately available.
The general director of the Bavarian Opera, Serge Dorny, said in a tweet “deeply saddened” by the death of the conductor who was 73 years old. “We are losing a talented conductor”did he declare. “I am losing a good friend. My thoughts are with his wife Michaela.”
Die Nachricht über den Zusammenbruch und das Ableben von Stefan Soltesz macht mich zutiefst traurig. Wir verlieren einen begnadeten Dirigenten. Ich verliere einen guten Freund. Meine Gedanken sind bei seiner Frau Michaela. #RIP pic.twitter.com/CbQVBh3jgf
—Serge Dorny (@DornySerge) July 22, 2022
The Hungarian-born Austrian maestro held the baton in the opera houses of Vienna, Graz, Hamburg and Berlin during his long career. He was musical director of the Brunswick theater in central Germany from 1988 to 1993 and conductor of the Flemish Opera in Antwerp and Ghent from 1992 to 1997. He made his debut on the stage of the Bavarian Opera in 1995.