Biography
Conductor Michael Boder devoted himself particularly to contemporary opera, directing numerous world premieres of significant new scores while also embracing core twentieth-century repertoire by Berg, Schoenberg and their contemporaries, earlier operatic works, and fresh orchestral compositions.
Born in Darmstadt on November 9, 1958, he completed his training at the Musikhochschule Hamburg before pursuing advanced studies in Florence with Zubin Mehta and Riccardo Muti. After serving as assistant to Michael Gielen at the Frankfurt Opera, he was appointed chief conductor of Switzerland’s Basel Orchestra at age twenty-nine. In those years he appeared as guest at leading German houses as well as at Covent Garden, where he introduced himself with Verdi’s Rigoletto, and subsequently at the San Francisco Opera. His commitment to new opera surfaced early when he led the world premiere of Luca Lombardi’s Faust. Un Travestimento at the Basel Opera; it deepened during his frequent engagements at the Vienna State Opera, beginning with Berg’s Wozzeck. There he became a preferred conductor for contemporary scores, directing the premieres of Friedrich Cerha’s Die Reise vom Steinfeld, Aribert Reimann’s Medea and Das Schloss, together with works by Hans Werner Henze and Krzysztof Penderecki; he also gave the German premiere of George Enescu’s Oedipe. In Vienna he further conducted operas from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, among them Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Frau ohne Schatten and Elektra.
In 2008 Boder assumed the post of general music director at the Liceu Theater in Barcelona, remaining until 2012, when he was named chief conductor of the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen. He recorded the Vienna production of Das Schloss for Wergo in 1999 and later turned to instrumental repertoire; in 2007 he taped Gloria Coates’s Symphony No. 15 with the Vienna Radio Symphony for Naxos. Returning in 2020, he led the same ensemble—by then called the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony—in orchestral works by Morton Feldman. Michael Boder died on April 7, 2024, at the age of sixty-five.
Born in Darmstadt on November 9, 1958, he completed his training at the Musikhochschule Hamburg before pursuing advanced studies in Florence with Zubin Mehta and Riccardo Muti. After serving as assistant to Michael Gielen at the Frankfurt Opera, he was appointed chief conductor of Switzerland’s Basel Orchestra at age twenty-nine. In those years he appeared as guest at leading German houses as well as at Covent Garden, where he introduced himself with Verdi’s Rigoletto, and subsequently at the San Francisco Opera. His commitment to new opera surfaced early when he led the world premiere of Luca Lombardi’s Faust. Un Travestimento at the Basel Opera; it deepened during his frequent engagements at the Vienna State Opera, beginning with Berg’s Wozzeck. There he became a preferred conductor for contemporary scores, directing the premieres of Friedrich Cerha’s Die Reise vom Steinfeld, Aribert Reimann’s Medea and Das Schloss, together with works by Hans Werner Henze and Krzysztof Penderecki; he also gave the German premiere of George Enescu’s Oedipe. In Vienna he further conducted operas from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, among them Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, Die Frau ohne Schatten and Elektra.
In 2008 Boder assumed the post of general music director at the Liceu Theater in Barcelona, remaining until 2012, when he was named chief conductor of the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen. He recorded the Vienna production of Das Schloss for Wergo in 1999 and later turned to instrumental repertoire; in 2007 he taped Gloria Coates’s Symphony No. 15 with the Vienna Radio Symphony for Naxos. Returning in 2020, he led the same ensemble—by then called the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony—in orchestral works by Morton Feldman. Michael Boder died on April 7, 2024, at the age of sixty-five.
Albums
