“Stefan Soltesz, a prominent and in-demand Austrian conductor, died on Friday night after collapsing during a performance at Munich’s main opera house,” writes A.J. Goldmann in Saturday’s (7/23) New York Times. “Mr. Soltesz, 73, was conducting the Richard Strauss opera ‘The Silent Woman’ at the Bayerische Staatsoper, or Bavarian State Opera, when he fell from his podium shortly before the end of the first act. He was pronounced dead at a hospital several hours later, said Michael Wuerges, the spokesman for the company…. Mr. Soltesz, who was born in 1949 in Hungary, conducted at major opera houses across Europe over the past four decades. He held musical directorship positions at the State Theater of Brunswick, in Germany, from 1988 to 1993, and at the Flemish Opera in Antwerp and Ghent, in Belgium, from 1992 to 1997. His most recent appointment was in Essen, Germany, where he led that city’s opera house, the Aalto Theater, as well as the Essen Philharmonic from 1997 to 2013…. Soltesz also led performances throughout Asia, and in 1992, he made his United States debut with the National Opera with … Verdi’s ‘Otello’ at the Kennedy Center…. Mr. Soltesz is survived by his wife, Michaela Selinger, a mezzo soprano.”
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