István Kertész (conductor)

István Kertész ( born August 28, 1929 in Budapest, † 16 April 1973 in Kfar Saba, Israel) was a Hungarian conductor in the genres of opera and concert.

Life

Kertész survived 1944, the persecution of Jews by the Eichmann command and its Hungarian workers. He studied music at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, where he was instructed by Zoltán Kodály. He was influenced by Bruno Walter and Otto Klemperer and was director of the Budapest Opera.

After the Hungarian People's Revolution of 1956, he left Hungary, walked into the Federal Republic of Germany, and was music director of the Augsburg Opera and 1964 the Cologne Opera. In Cologne, he conducted the first German performance of Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd.

He was principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1965 to 1968 and made guest appearances during this time at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. In 1973 he was appointed chief conductor of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and drowned shortly after the Israeli coast during a concert tour. István Kertész was a regular guest conductor of the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra.

Among his recordings was also the first complete recording of Mozart's Titus and the first recording of the complete symphonies of Antonín Dvořák. The tomb of István Kertész is located on the Melaten cemetery in Cologne.

Kertész was with the coloratura soprano Edith Gabry (1927-2012) married.