Portal:Opera/Selected biography/23

Sir Georg Solti, KBE, (21 October 1912 – 5 September 1997) was an orchestral and operatic conductor, best known for his appearances with opera companies in Munich, Frankfurt and London, and as a long-serving music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Born in Hungary, he studied in Budapest with Béla Bartók, Leo Weiner and Ernő Dohnányi. In the 1930s, he was a répétiteur at the Hungarian State Opera and worked at the Salzburg Festival for Arturo Toscanini. His career was interrupted by the rise of the Nazis, and as a Jew he fled the increasingly restrictive anti-semitic laws in 1938. After conducting a season of Russian ballet in London at the Royal Opera House he found refuge in Switzerland, where he remained during the Second World War. He was not permitted to conduct there, but earned a living as a pianist. After the war Solti was appointed musical director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich from 1946. In 1952 he moved to the Frankfurt Opera, where he remained in charge for nine years. In 1961 he became musical director of the Covent Garden Opera Company in London, where in his ten-year term he raised standards to the highest international levels. Under his musical directorship the status of the company was recognised with the grant of the title "the Royal Opera". He became a British subject in 1972.