Opera Scotland

Siegfried Kurz Suggest updates

Born Dresden, 18 July 1930.

Died Dresden, 8 January 2023.

German conductor.

Siegfried Kurz spent almost his entire career in his home city of Dresden.  He studied trumpet as well as conducting and composition.  While still a student he was appointed in charge of music at the Dresden State Theatre, staying there from 1949 to 1960.  From 1976 he also taught at the Hochschule für Musik.

He worked for over thirty years at the Staatsoper,becoming music director in 1971.  He brought the company to the 1982 Edinburgh International Festival,  where he conducted one of those Strauss works most associated with Dresden, Ariadne auf Naxos.