Hubert Deutsch

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Professor Hubert Deutsch is the bearer of several awards for his services to the Vienna State Opera, culminating in 1995 with the Österreichische Ehrenzeichen für Wissenschaft und Kunst, 1 Klasse. He travelled the world as a representative of the Vienna State Opera: New York, Tokyo, Milan, Prague, Budapest, and London regularly participating as member of the jury in international singing competitions. He keeps in contact with former singers and has endless anecdotes to tell about his encounters over the years with the great and the good in the opera: Herbert Von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Claudio Abbado, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Placido Domingo, Edita Gruberova, Agnes Baltsa, and many others.

Contents 1 Family Background 2 Education 3 The Vienna State Opera 4 Nowadays

[edit] Family Background

Hubert Deutsch was born in Vienna on the 3rd May 1925, only child to Ernst and Maria Deutsch. His father was from Moravia and worked until retirement as an official on the Austrian State Railways. Son of a district judge, he was a quiet scholarly man who held an encyclopaedic knowledge of flowers and plants, passion he transmitted to his son during their walks in the countryside. His mother, Maria Deutsch, born in Slovenia, was a most resourceful woman who, at the time of the “anschluss” persuaded the Nazi authorities to let her husband free after having been taken under custody. At the end of the Second World War, a time of acute shortage of food and resources in Vienna, she managed to get employed at a United States Army base, gaining access to provisions to sustain her family.

[edit] Education

After attending elementary school in Vienna, Hubert Deutsch received a classical grammar school education and acquired fluency in English language from an English aunt who lived in an adjacent apartment to that of his family. But he was, above all, an enthusiastic opera follower, often seen with his friends standing in the balcony of the Vienna State Opera. This love for opera was the inspiration that led him to start a music career at the Vienna Academy of Music and Art. Among others, his teachers were: Grete Hinterhofer in pianoforte, Josef Marx in music theory, and Professor Hans Swarowsky in conduction. Soon after obtaining his degree in 1951, Hubert Deutsch was engaged as a Conductor and Coach by the Landesteater in Linz-an-der-Donau. At that time, Austria was divided into military zones of occupation. The river Danube was the border between the American and Sovietic zones, with Linz in the American zone and its sister town, Urfahr, in the Sovietic one. As part of a daily routine, Hubert Deutsch, who lived then in Urfahr, had to show his passport at the Sovietic checkpoint on his way to the Landestetater. He lived there for four years, also teaching opera at the Brückner Conservatory in Linz.

[edit] The Vienna State Opera

He joined the Vienna state Opera on the 1st May 1955, initially as a Coach and Conductor of the stage orchestra. In 1958, he became Director of the Music Archives. In 1961, he was appointed Coordinator in the Administration. Followed by a position as Deputy Artistic Administrator in 1962, he succeeded to the post of Artistic Administrator in 1976. In 1985, he became Director of Planning and in 1990 consultant to the Administrative Director. From 1992 to 1995, he was also Vice-Director Deputy to Ioan Holender.

[edit] Nowadays

Gifted with a prodigious memory for the operatic repertoire, professor Deutsch can instantly recall the season a particular singer played a particular role. He has a profound knowledge of the history of the Hasburg Monarchy and their association with the Opera House. His paper, Fifty Five Years of the Vienna State Opera (1937-1992), is an outstanding description of it; from the standpoints of an audience participant to the perspective of a staff member.

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