He was born in Dresden in 1929 and raised in Berlin. He studied at the Frankfurt Conservatory and then worked at the Frankfurt Opera [Oper Frankfurt]. There he studied under Georg Solti and later on he became his personal assistant and head of the production preparation department. He served as assistant to Hans Rosbaud. In 1963 he became musical director of the State Theatre of Darmstadt [Staatstheater Darmstadt], a position he held for three decades, until 1995, drawing considerable practical experience and submitting an offer of long artistic continuity. For his contribution to the establishment of Darmstadt as an important theater he was honored with two major German awards (1994). Thereafter and for two years he was Music Director of the Northern Netherlands Symphony Orchestra (1994-1996). His wide repertoire extends beyond the composers of classicism and romanticism, including composers such as Richard Strauss, Mahler, Karl Amadeus Hartmann and Shostakovich, composers of the Second Viennese School and younger German composers from Reimann to Pintscher. He has conducted in many German opera houses: Berlin, Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart, as well as in opera houses of other cities outside Germany, such as Bern, Nantes, San Francisco, Stockholm, and Tokyo (with the Düsseldorf Opera). As a conductor of symphony concerts he has appeared in cities like Arnhem, Helsinki, Malmö, Nijmegen, Paris, Stockholm, and Toulouse. He is a constant collaborator of the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. He collaborated once with the GNO in 2006/07, when he directed the opera Don Giovanni at the Acropol Theatre, in Athens. // // Last update of the biography: November 2015 - The list of productions below is complete.