Franz Allers

Franz Allers ( born August 6, 1905 in Carlsbad, † January 26, 1995 in Las Vegas ) was an American conductor of Czech origin.

Life

The son of a lawyer from 1923 to 1926 studied at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Berlin. Allers was choirmaster at the Schubert Choir Berlin already during his music studies. From 1926 to 1933 he had the position of principal conductor of the then United Stadttheater Barmen- Elberfeld in Wuppertal. He had Engagements 1927. As an assistant at the Bayreuth Festival and in 1929 at the Wagner Festival in Paris

In 1933 he was expelled because of his Jewish origin and went to Czechoslovakia as Kapellmeister at the Stadttheater to Usti. The Sudeten Nazis expelled him in 1938 also there, and Allers fled to the United States. First, he made ​​his way as a piano teacher and accompanied the Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo toured. From 1946 it a broadway career succeeded and he conducted the first performances of a number of musicals Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, as Brigadoon (1947 ) and Paint Your Wagon ( 1951). On March 15, 1956, he conducted the premiere of My Fair Lady on Broadway and 1961, the premiere of the German version in the theater of the West Berlin.

After the collaboration of Lerner and Loewe had ended in 1962, Allers 1973 returned back to Germany, where he was until 1976 chief conductor of the Gärtnerplatztheater. He had his residence in Munich, when he died aged 89 on a trip to California.

Allers received the 1957 Tony Award / Best Conductor and Music Director for My Fair Lady and 1961 for the musical Camelot.