Kurt Herbert Adler (2 April 1905 – 9 February 1988) was an

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

n-born

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

conductor and

opera house An opera house is a theatre building used for performances of opera. It usually includes a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and building sets. While some venues are constructed specifically fo ...

director.

Biography

Adler was born in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family; his mother,

Ida Bauer Dora is the pseudonym given by Sigmund Freud to a patient whom he diagnosed with hysteria, and treated for about eleven weeks in 1900. Her most manifest hysterical symptom was aphonia, or loss of voice. The patient's real name was Ida Bauer (188 ...

, was one of the first patients of

Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts i ...

. His work in the field of music led him to become the assistant to

Arturo Toscanini Arturo Toscanini (; ; March 25, 1867January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orch ...

at the

Salzburg Festival The Salzburg Festival (german: Salzburger Festspiele) is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer (for five weeks starting in late July) in the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Ama ...

in 1936 and he also worked in Italy. Following the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

occupation of Austria in 1938, as a Jew he was forced to leave and went to the

Chicago City Opera Company The Chicago City Opera Company was a grand opera Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterized by large-scale casts and orchestras, and (in their original productions) lavish and spectacular desi ...

as assistant chorus director where he worked for five years.

Gaetano Merola Gaetano Merola (4 January 1881 – 30 August 1953) was an Italian conductor, pianist and founder of the San Francisco Opera. Biography Merola was born in Naples, the son of a Neapolitan court violinist and studied piano and conductor at the ...

, then General Director of the

San Francisco Opera San Francisco Opera (SFO) is an American opera company founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola (1881–1953) based in San Francisco, California. History Gaetano Merola (1923–1953) Merola's road to prominence in the Bay Area began in 1906 when h ...

, heard of him and, over the telephone, invited him to the San Francisco Opera in 1943 as chorus director. In the following ten years, he took on more and more administrative details as Merola's health and energy diminished. While Adler was not the Board's natural choice to replace Merola at the time of his death in 1953, after three months of acting as Artistic Director and with the help of its president, Robert Watt Miller, Adler was confirmed as General Director. Adler's aims in taking over the company were several. One was to expand the season and, by the 1969 season, eleven operas were given five or six performances each on average while the season ran to late November. He was tireless in seeking out up-and-coming new singers, whether American or European, by attending performances in both major and minor opera houses. Thirdly, his interest in developing stronger connections to opera stage directors in an attempt to strengthen the dramatic and theatrical elements of the works, led to a long relationship with Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. Other innovations included the Merola Opera Program named after the founder of the San Francisco Opera, and "Opera in the Park", which, from 1971, has been an annual free concert in

Golden Gate Park Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, United States, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. It is administered by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department, which began in 1871 to oversee the developm ...

on the Sunday following opening night of the fall season. He was not always regarded as an easy person to work for, but his principal achievements in San Francisco were to greatly raise the standards of the opera company and "to attract a stunning galaxy of European stars, some at the beginning of their careers, to a small city at the other end of the world, often at significantly lower salaries than New York or Chicago would offer". He retired in late December 1981 and continued to conduct and be involved with music until his death in

Ross, California Ross is a small incorporated town in Marin County, California, United States, just north of San Francisco. Ross is located west-southwest of San Rafael, at an elevation of . The population was 2,338 at the 2020 census. The town is bordered ...

in 1988. The

Adler Fellowship The San Francisco Opera Center (SFOC) is the San Francisco Opera's professional training center for opera singers. Based in San Francisco, it encompasses two different professional tracks for training: a summer training program known as the Merola ...

program was started in his name by

Terence A. McEwen Terence A. McEwen (13 April 1929 – 14 September 1998) was a Canadian opera manager. Upbringing and early career Though born in Thunder Bay, Ontario, McEwen grew up in the Montreal area where he learned to love opera and listened to the Me ...

to support young singers managed by the San Francisco Opera. His son Ronald H. Adler is an opera director and has been artistic director at the

Bavarian State Opera The Bayerische Staatsoper is a German opera company based in Munich. Its main venue is the Nationaltheater München, and its orchestra the Bayerische Staatsorchester. History The parent ensemble of the company was founded in 1653, under Ele ...

(2001–08) and the

Berlin State Opera The (), also known as the Berlin State Opera (german: Staatsoper Berlin), is a listed building on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic center of Berlin, Germany. The opera house was built by order of Prussian king Frederick the Great ...

(2008–11).

Notable quote

"Tradition is what you resort to when you don't have the time and money to do it right."Kurt H. Adler, "Cryptoquote puzzle", ''Halifax Chronicle Herald'', March 29, 2007.

References

Notes Sources * *

External links

*
San Francisco Opera official websiteOnline guide to the Kurt Herbert Adler Papers

The Bancroft Library The Bancroft Library in the center of the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, is the university's primary special-collections library. It was acquired from its founder, Hubert Howe Bancroft, in 1905, with the proviso that it retai ...

Interview with Kurt Herbert Adler
by Bruce Duffie, October 11, 1986
Kurt Herbert Adler
(in German) from the online-archive of the

Österreichische Mediathek The Österreichische Mediathek ("Austrian Mediathek") is the Austrian archive for sound recordings and videos on cultural and contemporary history. It was founded in 1960 as Österreichische Phonothek (Austrian Phonothek) by the Ministry of Educat ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Adler, Kurt Herbert 1905 births 1988 deaths American male conductors (music) Jewish American classical musicians Opera managers Jewish emigrants from Austria to the United States after the Anschluss Musicians from Vienna Austrian conductors (music) Male conductors (music) 20th-century American conductors (music) 20th-century American male musicians 20th-century American Jews