Friedrich Haider
Conductor and pianist Friedrich Haider is a notable figure in both opera and orchestral music. In the former field, he has specialized in the works of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari and in bel canto opera.
Haider was born in Austria on November 7, 1961. He began his musical career as a boy chorister, performing when he was 11 in Bach cantata performances by the Concentus Musicus Wien under Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Haider attended the Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität in Linz, studying conducting and piano there. He was also active as a composer during those years and earned a talent development prize from the Upper Austria region. Haider went on to the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, studying conducting with Karl Österreicher, and he took master classes at the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg with Milan Horvat. Haider made dual debuts in 1984, conducting a performance of Johann Strauss II's Wiener Blut in the Austrian city of Klagenfurt and leading the Wiener Kammerorchester in Vienna. He developed a large repertory conducting opera at various regional houses, and in 1991, when he was 29, he became one of the youngest music directors in the history of the Opera National du Rhin in Strasbourg, France. His recording career began that year as a pianist when he backed soprano Edita Gruberová, with whom he was romantically involved, on an album of lieder by Richard Strauss. He made a series of recordings with the Opera National du Rhin for the Nightingale label in the 1990s.
In the new century, Haider made guest conducting appearances at increasingly prestigious orchestras, often in bel canto opera. These included debuts at the Wiener Staatsoper in 2002, where he led the house's traditional New Year's Eve performance of Die Fledermaus three times, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where he conducted Verdi's Rigoletto. He made guest appearances at the Semperoper in Dresden, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and the Tokyo National Opera, among other houses. After finding a score of Wolf-Ferrari's opera Il segreto di Susanna in a secondhand bookshop, he began to conduct that composer's works; he has also worked on editions of Wolf-Ferrari's music and is a leading authority on it. From 2004 to 2011, Haider served as the principal conductor of the Oviedo Filarmonia in Spain. In 2011, he moved to the Slovak National Opera in Bratislava to take up the position of music director. The position was specially created for him, but he departed in 2016 after disagreements with the Slovak government over funding cuts. Since then, he has served as the principal guest conductor with the Theater und Philharmonie Essen in Germany and the Warsaw Chamber Opera. He has continued to record with the Oviedo Filarmonia, issuing a series of works by Wolf-Ferrari on the Naxos label. His recording of the composer's complete overtures and intermezzi appeared in 2021. Haider is also an authority on the works of artist Ernst Fuchs and co-authored a book about him in 2003.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Discography
8 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Wolf-Ferrari: Orchestral Works
Oviedo Filarmonía, Friedrich Haider
Classical - Released by Naxos on 9 Mar 2010
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wolf-Ferrari: Complete Overtures & Intermezzi
Oviedo Filarmonía, Friedrich Haider, Ingri Elise Engeland, Frank-Michael Guthmann
Classical - Released by Naxos on 22 Oct 2021
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wolf-Ferrari: Violinkonzert
Benjamin Schmid, Oviedo Filarmonía, Friedrich Haider
Concertos - Released by Farao Classics on 27 Nov 2012
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wolf-Ferrari : Il Segreto di Susanna - Serenade for Strings in E-Flat Major
Oviedo Filarmonía, Angel Odena, Friedrich Haider, Judith Howarth
Operettas - Released by Naxos on 8 Mar 2019
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi: Canzoni
Diana Damrau, Paul Armin Edelmann, Cesar Augusto Gutierrez, Friedrich Haider
Classical - Released by Profil on 8 Mar 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Strauss: Die Fledermaus
Operettas - Released by CapriccioNR on 28 Jan 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wolf-Ferrari: Talitha Kumi, La passione & 8 Cori
Rainer Trost , Joan Martín-Royo, Coro El León de Oro, Oviedo Filarmonía, Friedrich Haider
Classical - Released by Naxos on 9 Feb 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
I palpiti d'amour
Krassimira Stoyanova, Münchner Rundfunkorchester, Nikolay Borchev, Friedrich Haider, Priska Eser-Streit
Opera - Released by Orfeo on 10 Jul 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo