Stefan Soltész
Austrian conductor of Hungarian origin, studied conducting with Hans Swarowsky as well as composition and piano at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts, conducted numerous world premieres there and corrected at the Vienna State Opera. After working as a conductor at the Theater an der Wien and in Graz and as assistant to Karl Böhm, Christoph von Dohnányi and Herbert von Karajan at the Salzburg Festival, he was permanent conductor of the Hamburg State Opera from 1983 to 1985 and held the same position at the Deutsche Oper Berlin from 1985 to 1997. He served as General Music Director at the Braunschweig State Theatre from 1988 to 1993, where he is now Honorary Conductor. From 1992 to 1997 he held the position of chief conductor of the Flemish Opera Antwerp/Ghent. From 1997 to 2013 he led the Essen Philharmonic and the Aalto Music Theatre in a dual capacity as general music director and artistic director, an era accompanied by numerous prizes and honours. Stefan Soltész regularly conducts at the Vienna State Opera as well as at Germany's major opera houses, including the state operas in Munich, Berlin and Dresden, the opera houses of Cologne and Frankfurt and the Komische Oper Berlin. In recent years he has made guest appearances at the Nederlandse Opera Amsterdam, the Roman Opera, the Budapest State Opera, the Teatr Wielki Warsaw, Moscow's Bolshoi Theatre, the Grand Théâtre de Genève, the New National Theatre in Tokyo as well as at the festivals in Glyndebourne, Savonlinna, Taipei (Taiwan) and Tongyeong (Korea), at the Richard Strauss Festival in Garmisch and the Whitsun Festival in Baden-Baden. Stefan Soltész has conducted symphony concerts and radio recordings in Munich, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Hanover, Dresden, Berlin, Vienna, Rome, Catania, Milan, Genoa, Basel, Bern, Paris, Moscow, Budapest, Nagoya and Palermo. His CD recording of Alban Berg's "Lulu Suite" and Hans Werner Henze's "Appassionatamente plus" with the Essen Philharmonic was nominated for the Grammy and the ICMA. Live recordings of Strauss' "Salome" and Boito's "Mefistofele" at the Whitsun Festival Baden-Baden as well as Debussy's "Pelléas et Mélisande" from the Aalto Theatre Essen are available on DVD. In addition to numerous other awards, Stefan Soltész was awarded the title of professor honoris causa by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. In the 2019/20 season he will take over the musical direction for "Les Huguenots/Die Hugenotten".