Holender Ioan

b. July 18, 1935, Timisoara

Baritone, impresario, director at Volksoper Wien şi Wiener Staatsoper

Director of the "George Enescu" Festival. Author.

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Holender Ioan

Ioan Holender comes from a Jewish family from Timișoara. His maternal grandfather, Jenö (Eugen) Dornhelm, was a textile manufacturer and trader, and for a time the president of the Jewish Community, his father, the owner of a vinegar and marmalade factory. In 1943, being a Jew, he was expelled from school and became a student at the Israelite High School in Timisoara. In 1948 the factory was nationalized, and the young Ioan Holender was forced to work for a year as an unskilled worker at the Timișoara Transport Company, because he was not accepted at the university. In 1953 he managed to be admitted to the Timișoara Polytechnic Institute. When he was in the third year, in 1956, he gave a speech during the student revolt in Timisoara (under the influence of the Anti-Communist Revolution of 1956 in Hungary), for which he was expelled. He earned his living as a tennis coach.

In 1959 he emigrated and settled with his father in Vienna, where his mother already lived. He studied at the Vienna State Conservatory between 1960 and 1962. He sang as a baritone at the Vienna Opera, Klagenfurt and Sankt Pölten (1962-1966). He collaborated at the Burgtheater, was deputy director at Volksoper Vienna, as well as director on smaller stages.

From 1966 he became artistic agent and music manager at the "Starka" Theater Agency, which he took over after a while, becoming the "Holender Artistic Entrepreneurship Agency".

Career

In 1988 he was appointed general secretary by the director of the State Opera (Wiener Staatsoper), baritone Eberhard Wächter. After Wächter's sudden death in 1992, John Holender took over the leadership of the Vienna State Opera and People's Opera (Volksoper Wien) and led the two institutions alone for 4 years. He was the director of the State Opera until August 30, 2010, becoming the longest-lived director.

In parallel with this activity, he also wrote other projects related to opera. His autobiographical book, "From Timisoara to Vienna", presents his journey and tells with affection about his childhood and youth spent in the city on the Bega to which he feels very attached until now.

The farewell gala at the Vienna State Opera lasted 6 hours, attended by famous conductors, from Zubin Mehta to Antonio Pappano, performers like Anna Netrebko and Placido Domingo. After retiring from the Vienna Opera, he continued his artistic career worldwide as an artistic advisor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and at the Tokyo Spring Festival.

In 2003 he became the artistic director of the George Enescu Festival in Romania. His credo was: "Art must be brought in front of an audience thirsty for beauty." "The Holender Era" ended after 12 years, after the 7th edition of the George Enescu Festival, which it transformed into one of the most important artistic events in Romania and brought it to a first-rate international level.

The volume "George Enescu Festival in the Holender era", a book-testimony about the evolution of the most prestigious cultural event in Romania, was launched in September 2015 at the Romanian Athenaeum.

Distinguished with the title of "Honorary Citizen of Timişoara" and Doctor Honoris Causa of the West University of Timişoara, Ioan Holender is deeply attached to Romania and his hometown, where he is still a stimulating element in artistic life.

Publications

  • Ioan Holender. Der Lebensweg des Wiener Staatsoperndirektors . Autobiografie, bearbeitet von Marie-Theres Arnbom. Wien, Böhlau, 2001, ISBN 3-205-99384-5
  • idem, Ich bin noch nicht fertig, Hanser Verlage, 2010, ISBN 978-3-552-05493-6
  • idem, De la Timișoara la Viena, Ed. Universal Dalsi, 2002
  • idem, Said, lived, desired. Memories, "Alexandru-Ioan Cuza University Publishing House from Iaşi", edited by Gabriel Kohn, afterword by Cornel Ungureanu, translated by Ioana Rostoș, "Alexandru-Ioan Cuza University Publishing House, Iași, 2011, 288 p., ISBN 978-973-640-653-9
  • The "George Enescu" Festival in the Holender era, volume of texts by Ioan Holender, Livius Ciocârlie, Emil Hurezeanu, Dan Dediu, Ioana Marghita and Sever Voinescu. Bucharest National Opera Publishing House, 2015.

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