GREAT CONDUCTOR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 110, 13 May 1942, Page 1

GREAT CONDUCTOR

FELIX WEINGARTNER DEAD A London cablegram reports the death in Switzerland of r’aul Felix Weingartner, one of the most lamous conductors of the present generation, taking rank with suclii as ros; anim, Bruno Walther, Stokowski, and Sir Thomas Beecham. He succeeded' Mahler as conductor of the opera in Vienna in 1908, and when he retired from that post in 1919, he began a tour as guest conductor, which took him to America and England, ana every centre of Europe. Felix Weingartner, who was 79 years of age, was a native of Zara, Dalmatia. At an early age ne became pupil of W. R. Romy, Leipzig, Germany, and when at the conservato.re there he won the Mozart prize. He was appointed conductor of the orchestra at the Konisberg Theatre, and later went to Danzig in a similar capacity. Hamburg and Mannheim followed. Then in 1891 he was called to the Berlin Opera House, and was also conductor of the Royal Orchestra. Weingartner was also a composer of some distinction. His opera, "Sakuntala,” was produced in Weimar in 1884, “Malawika” in Munich in 1886, “Genesis” in Berlin in 1893, and later, his “Orestes,” produced in Berlin early in the present century, set the seal on I his fame as a composer. The last years of his life were not the happiest. He did not find the Nazi regime iompatible with his ideas of culture, and left Berlin for Vienna, and before Nazidom*seized Austria, he moved to Switzerland, where he died.