Death of the conductor Stefan Soltész following an illness during a performance
Eva Deschamps / July 23, 2022
Austrian conductor Stefan Soltész collapsed Friday night during a performance of Richard Strauss' The Silent Woman at the National Theater in Munich, Germany.
The Bayerische Staatsoper announced the death of the 73-year-old musician shortly after the incident.
Born in Hungary in 1949, Stefan Soltész took his first piano lessons at the age of four and arrived in Vienna, Austria, at the age of 10. His career began in 1971 at the Theater an der Wien.
During the next two decades he conducted at the Wiener Staatsoper, the Hamburger Staatsoper and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. He then became conductor at the Opera Ballet Vlaanderen from 1992 to 1997. In 1997 he was appointed Artistic and Musical Director of the Aalto Musiktheater in Essen and held this position until 2013. Under his leadership, the theater has gained international recognition.
Stefan Soltész has also worked in many other major opera houses, including Frankfurt, Rome, Budapest, Warsaw, Moscow and Paris.