Vienna Opera mourns a press officer
RIPThe urbane, unfailingly cooperative Lothar Knessl has died, aged 95.
The world’s media knew his has the obliging and unflappable press officer of the Vienna State Opera during the Claudio Abbado 1980s.
Those who knew him a little better were aware that he was a driving force in contemporary music. A composer in his own right, he was chief adviser on new music to the Ministry of Culture, founder of a major award, curator of the Wien Modern festival and President of the Austrian Section of the International Society for New Music.
He also wrote a useful biography of his main teacher, Ernst Krenek.
Quite a c.v. for a press officer.
I wonder if he was responsible for bringing the premier of Olga Neuwirth’s piece last year.
No. The only thing he was responsible for was preventing Austria’s truly talented composers from receiving the Erste Bank Kompositionspreis so that his mediocre friends could have it.