Michael Gielen

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 also principal conductor of the National Orchestra of Belgium (1969–1973), the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (1980–1986) and the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra (1986–1999). His works were premiered with performers such as Joan Carroll, Siegfried Palm, Aloys Kontarsky and the LaSalle Quartet.

Training under Erich Kleiber is recorded. The recorded working language is German. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are classical and contemporary classical. Distinctions recorded are Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, Great Silver Medal of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria, Musikpreis der Stadt Duisburg and Culture Medal of Upper Austria.

• Name — Michael Gielen • Birth Name — Michael Andreas Gielen • Born — 20 July 1927 • Birthplace — Dresden, Germany • Died — 8 March 2019 • Place of death — Mondsee, Austria • Occupation — * Conductor • Composer • Organization — * Royal Swedish Opera • Oper Frankfurt • Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra • Awards — * Hessian Cultural Prize • Theodor W. Adorno Award • Frankfurter Musikpreis • Duisburger Musikpreis • Ernst von Siemens Music Prize • Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

Gielen was born in Dresden to Rose (née Steuermann) and Josef Gielen. 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. The football player Zygmunt Steuermann was their younger brother. 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. 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. When his father's contract was dissolved in 1937, he found a position at the Vienna Burgtheater. The family followed there in 1938. 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.

Gielen began his career as a pianist in Buenos Aires, where he studied with Erwin Leuchter. As a répétiteur at the Teatro Colón at age 20, he played the basso continuo to the recitatives, in the style of the time, in a performance of Bach's St Matthew Passion conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler. In 1949, he gave an early performance of Arnold Schoenberg's complete piano works. In this period he also shortly studied philosophy. 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, assisting conductors such as Karl Böhm, Herbert von Karajan and Clemens Krauss. He conducted contemporary music outside the opera house. • Illustration — Gielen (right) after the premiere of Ein Traumspiel by Aribert Reimann (centre), June 1965 His next operatic appointment, from 1960, was at the Royal Swedish Opera, where he was Generalmusikdirektor (GMD) for the first time, until 1965. He conducted a production of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, which Ingmar Bergman staged as a radicalised Christian Passion (radikalisierte christliche Passion), in the presence of the composer. He took to freelance conducting in 1965, including the premiere of Bernd Alois Zimmermann's opera Die Soldaten in Cologne that year, a work that had been deemed to be impossible to perform. He premiered Aribert Reimann's opera Ein Traumspiel on 20 June 1965 at the Opernhaus Kiel. He then had a contract with the Netherlands Opera. From 1977 to 1987, Gielen was GMD at the Oper Frankfurt, where he worked with the dramaturge Klaus Zehelein towards more contemporary operas. In 1979, he revived Franz Schreker's opera Die Gezeichneten there, which had premiered in Frankfurt in 1918. During his time in Frankfurt, later called the Gielen Era, he collaborated with stage directors such as Hans Neuenfels for Verdi's Aida and Ruth Berghaus for Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. The time was described as the Ära Gielen/Zehelein (Gielen/Zehelein era) and made Frankfurt an internationally recognised opera. Gielen was also principal conductor of the Belgian National Orchestra (1969–73) and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (1980–86). He was from 1986 to 1999 the conductor of the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg (Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra), and made it known as the leading orchestra for premieres, notably at the Donaueschinger Musiktage. From 1991, he collaborated in Berlin with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden and the Berliner Sinfonie-Orchester (now Konzerthausorchester Berlin). 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. In 1973 he recorded Schoenberg's opera Moses und Aron, used as a soundtrack for the film Moses und Aron. In October 2014, Gielen announced his retirement from conducting for health reasons, particularly seriously deteriorated eyesight. He died in Mondsee, Austria, on 8 March 2019 of pneumonia.