Leopold Hager

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Leopold Hager is an Austrian conductor (born October 6, 1935, Salzburg), known for his interpretations of works from the First Viennese School (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert).

Hager, originally a butcher (which he has always tried to neglect), studied - after his first professional training - Piano, Organ, Harpsichord, Conducting, and Composition at the Salzburg Mozarteum (1949-1957) with Paumgartner, Wimberger, Bresgen, J.N. David, and Kornauth. He was appointed assistant conductor at the Mainz City Theater (1957-1962) and, after conducting the Linz Landestheater (1962-1964), he was appointed first conductor of the Cologne Opera (1964-1965). He then served as Generalmusikdirektor in Freiburg im Breisgau (1965-1969), chief conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra and of the Landestheater in Salzburg (1969-1981). In October 1976 he debuted at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York when conducting Le nozze di Figaro. He also appeared as a guest conductor with other opera houses as well as orchestras in Europe (Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, etc.) and the United States. In 1981, he became music director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Radio-Télé-Luxembourg (now the Luxembourg Philharmonic Orchestra), and concluded his tenure there in 1996.

Until 2004, Hager taught Orchestral Conducting at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, continuing a direct line of renowned teachers including Clemens Krauss, Hans Swarowsky, and succeeding Karl Österreicher.

Since 2005 until now, though he already had retired as a professor from the University of Music and Dramatic Art of Vienna, he is the principal conductor at the Volksoper in Vienna.

Preceded by Mladen Bašić	Music Director, Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg 1969–1981	Succeeded by Hans Graf
Preceded by Louis de Froment	Music Director, RTL Grand Symphony Orchestra 1981–1996	Succeeded by David Shallon