Vienna mourns opera maestro who worked all stages
RIPThe death has been annnounced of the prodigious Caspar Richter, a conductor who started out as Lorin Maazel’s repetiteur in 1968 Berlin and went on to be one of the most reliable ensemble members. From 1983 he was permanent conductor at the Vienna State Opera and head of orchestra at the Vienna Volksoper. He went on to found an orchestra for three other theatres – Theater an der Wien, Raimaundtheater and Ronacher.
In 2010he was named general music director of the Brno National Opera, in the Czech repubblic
Maestro Richter gave us some of the first recordings of Korngold’s previously unrecorded music back in the early CD era. I am very grateful for his doing so. RIP.
I had the pleasure of working alongside maestro Richter when he conducted a musical concert in Brno and I was Studienleiter there. He was one of those rare musicians who seemed to have an equal love for the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber as well as for Gustav Mahler. I remember seeing him conduct Mahler’s 3rd in Brno, and I wish I could have seen him conduct the Bernstein Mass as he was ideally suited for that piece. My fondest memory was when I was scheduled to assist on Messiaen’s Turangalila Symphonie for another conductor and I mentioned to Caspar the difficulty I was having in finding a score for it. He graciously offered to loan me his score, and I was so surprised he had that score and ever grateful for his generosity.
I will remember him whenever I listen to Turangalila as well as West Side Story 🙂
Conductors like Caspar Richter are rare. They respect all types of music, as long as they are of value. No snobbery, no preaching, just professional and wise. A real loss.
Very sad. I met him in the 1980s when he was MD of Das Phantom der Oper in Vienna. Seemed a very nice chap.