Harry Kupfer, one of the most successful opera directors in Germany, is dead. He died in Berlin on Monday at the age of 84, as his agency Arsis in Vienna announced on Tuesday. Kupfer, who was chief director at the Komische Oper Berlin for 21 years, had great success with his productions at the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth.
One of the milestones in his career was the production of Richard Wagner's ten most important operas at the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden with conductor Daniel Barenboim.
The Berliner, born on August 12, 1935, owed his profession to great musicality - and a weak voice. Because he couldn't sing, all he had to do was directing to quench his passion for opera, he always said. The student of director-master Walter Felsenstein made his directorial debut at the age of 23 with Antonin Dvorak's "Rusalka" in Halle. After Stralsund, Chemnitz, Weimar and most recently as State Opera Director in Dresden, he moved again to Berlin and the Komische Oper in 1981.
In 1978 he brought the "Flying Dutchman" to the stage in Bayreuth. Ten years later he produced the "Ring des Nibelungen" with Daniel Barenboim. He once said that he wanted to show people on stage with their conflicts, problems and contradictions.
The student of director-master Walter Felsenstein felt particularly committed to the modern and the ostracized composer. In 1994 Kupfer had brought Berthold Goldschmidt's musical tragicomedy "The Huge Cuckold" onto the stage. After the Nazi ban, the work had not been performed for 60 years.
In recent years he has worked in Dresden and Sydney, bringing out the "Ring" in Barcelona and the "Parsifal" in Helsinki. In Salzburg he staged the "Rosenkavalier" with great jubilation, in Shanghai a musical. His longtime stage designer Hans Schavernoch was always at his side.
"I want to play through all the questions of the world in this beautiful total art form, the opera, in order to make suggestions for the way people live together," said Kupfer. "It is my immediate need to express myself in this genre, actually my way of life."
His management wrote on Tuesday: "Despite his age and illness, he was full of plans to the end."
