Stefan Soltesz was a frequent guest conductor at the Vienna State Opera and at the major opera houses throughout Europe, for instance at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, the state opera houses in Berlin, Dresden and Munich, the opera houses of Frankfurt and Cologne, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Bolshoi Theatre Moscow, Teatr Wielki in Warsaw and Hungarian State Opera in Budapest.  He has also appeared at Netherlands Opera Amsterdam, Bilbao Opera, Paris Opéra, Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, Teatro Bellini in Catania, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Washington and San Francisco opera houses, Zürich Opera, New National Theatre Tokyo, and at the festivals in Glyndebourne, Taipei, Montpellier, Aix-en-Provence, Pisa, Savonlinna, Tongyeong and Baden-Baden.

 

Stefan Soltesz was born in Nyiregyhaza (Hungary) in 1949 and moved as a child to Vienna. He studied conducting with Hans Swarowsky at the Vienna Academy of Music, where he also had training in composition and piano and led as conductor numerous world premieres of contemporary music. His artistic career progressed as conductor at the Theater an der Wien, followed by engagements as coach and conductor at the Vienna State Opera (1973-1983) and as guest conductor at the Opera House in Graz (1979-1981). For the Salzburg Festival he worked as a musical assistant to Karl Böhm, Christoph von Dohnányi and Herbert von Karajan.

 

Maestro Soltesz held the position of regular conductor at the Hamburg State Opera (1983-1985) and at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (1985-1997). He served as general music director of the State Theatre of Brunswick from 1988-1993 and as chief conductor of the Flemish Opera in Antwerp and Ghent from 1992-1997. From 1997 to 2013 he served as chief conductor of the Essener Philharmoniker and as artistic director of the Essen opera house Aalto Theater.

 

Stefan Soltesz has led radio performances and concerts in Berlin, Dresden, Genoa, Hanover, Hamburg, Milan, Munich, Paris, Rome, Palermo, Turin, Nagoya, Budapest, Vienna and Moscow. His discography includes operas by Giacomo Puccini, Giuseppe Gazzaniga and Alexander von Zemlinsky, as well as various symphonic works. His recording of music by Alban Berg and Hans Werner Henze won a Grammy nomination as well as an ICMA nomination. Strauss’ Salome and Boito’s Mefistofele from the Baden-Baden festival as well as Debussys’s Pelléas et Mélisande from Aalto Theater were published as DVD.

 

On July 22, 2022, Stefan Soltész collapsed during a performance of Richard Strauss’s opera Die schweigsame Frau at the Munich Opera Festival and died shortly afterwards in hospital at the age of 73. He lived in Berlin until his death and fulfilled his international obligations from there.