Gottfried R. Cervenka (29 August 1947 – 15 December 2015) was an Austrian radio presenter.

Life

Cervenka was born in Vienna. Already in the Bundesrealgymnasium Vereinsgasse in

Leopoldstadt Leopoldstadt (; bar, Leopoidstod, "Leopold-Town") is the 2nd municipal district of Vienna (german: 2. Bezirk) in Austria. there are 103,233 inhabitants over . It is situated in the heart of the city and, together with Brigittenau (20th distr ...

his interest for music was aroused, because the then music professor Hans Zimmerl was able to inspire the students with his special enthusiasm and passionate love for this genre. He was even able to bring famous singers like Max Lorenz to school. For more than 30 years, Cervenka has regularly directed opera programmes for the

Österreichischer Rundfunk ('Austrian Broadcasting Corporation'; ORF) is an Austrian national public broadcaster. Funded from a combination of television licence fee revenue and limited on-air advertising, ORF is the dominant player in the Austrian broadcast media. Aus ...

Ö1 Österreich 1 (Ö1) is an Austrian radio station: one of the four national channels operated by Austria's public broadcaster ORF. It focuses on classical music and opera, jazz, documentaries and features, news, radio plays and dramas, ''Kabarett' ...

, in particular the opera concert every Tuesday afternoon, which focused on historical recordings. In designing the programmes, he was able to draw on his own music collection, comprising some 40,000 recordings. With his programmes he also succeeded in arousing the interest of a broad audience for artists largely unknown in Austria such as Gert Lutze. His last show was dedicated to Hugh Beresford on his 90th birthday. In addition, he also presented operetta broadcasts and opera transmissions, especially from the

Metropolitan Opera The Metropolitan Opera (commonly known as the Met) is an American opera company based in New York City, resident at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, currently situated on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The company is operat ...

. For more than 25 years he also ran the "Da Caruso" shop in Vienna's Operngasse, which was known worldwide as a specialist shop for classical music. Cervenka was married and had a son, whom he named after the heroic tenor

Lauritz Melchior Lauritz Melchior (20 March 1890 – 18 March 1973) was a Danish-American opera singer. He was the preeminent Wagnerian tenor of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s and has come to be considered the quintessence of his voice type. Late in his career, Me ...

. Cervenka died in

Mödling Mödling () is the capital of the Austrian Mödling (district), district of the same name located approximately 14 km south of Vienna. Mödling lies in Lower Austria's industrial zone (Industrieviertel). The Mödlingbach, a brook which rises ...

at the age of 68.

References

External links

Der kundige Gestalter von Opernsendungen in Ö1 starb 68-jährig.

Apropos Musik

Gottfried Cervenka
on OperaLounge
BMUKK: Professoren-Titel an Gottfried Cervenka, Heinz Hellberg und Günter Neuhold
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cervenka, Gottfried 1947 births 2015 deaths Mass media people from Vienna Austrian radio presenters