Friedrich Haider

Friedrich Haider, who works as both conductor and pianist, has earned recognition across opera and symphonic music. Within opera he has concentrated on the output of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari and on bel canto repertoire.

Haider entered the world in Austria on November 7, 1961. His earliest musical experiences came as a boy chorister; at eleven he sang in Bach cantata performances given by the Concentus Musicus Wien under Nikolaus Harnoncourt. He pursued training at the Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität in Linz, where his subjects were conducting and piano. While there he also composed and received a talent development prize from the Upper Austria region. He continued at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, studying conducting with Karl Österreicher, and took part in master classes at the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg led by Milan Horvat.

In 1984 Haider made his first professional appearances, directing Johann Strauss II’s Wiener Blut in Klagenfurt and leading the Wiener Kammerorchester in Vienna. He accumulated a broad operatic repertoire at a succession of regional theaters. At twenty-nine, in 1991, he became music director of the Opera National du Rhin in Strasbourg, France—one of the youngest musicians ever appointed to that post in the company’s history. His recording activity began the same year when, as pianist, he accompanied soprano Edita Gruberová, then his romantic partner, in an album of Richard Strauss lieder. During the 1990s he made further recordings with the Opera National du Rhin for the Nightingale label.

After 2000 Haider appeared as guest conductor with major orchestras, most often in bel canto opera. His engagements included the Wiener Staatsoper in 2002, where he led the traditional New Year’s Eve performances of Die Fledermaus on three occasions, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where he conducted Verdi’s Rigoletto. He also worked at the Semperoper in Dresden, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, and the Tokyo National Opera. An encounter with a secondhand score of Wolf-Ferrari’s Il segreto di Susanna prompted him to explore that composer’s music; he has since prepared editions of Wolf-Ferrari’s works and is regarded as a leading authority on them. Between 2004 and 2011 he served as principal conductor of the Oviedo Filarmonia in Spain. In 2011 he became music director of the Slovak National Opera in Bratislava, a position created expressly for him, yet he left in 2016 after clashing with the Slovak government over funding reductions. He has since acted as principal guest conductor of the Theater und Philharmonie Essen in Germany and the Warsaw Chamber Opera. Recordings with the Oviedo Filarmonia have continued on the Naxos label, among them Wolf-Ferrari’s complete overtures and intermezzi, released in 2021. Haider is likewise an authority on the work of artist Ernst Fuchs and co-authored a book on him that appeared in 2003.