Clyuitans, Andre

He studied at the Antwerp Royal Conservatory, which he graduated in 1921 in piano and music theory, and was accepted as a tutor and choirmaster at the Royal Theater of Antwerp, where his father worked as a conductor. Kluitans himself first got behind the console in 1927 in the opera of Georges Bizet " Seekers of Pearls ." In 1932, he received an invitation to the Toulouse Opera House, and since 1935 he directed opera performances in Lyon and Bordeaux . As a symphonic conductor, he made his debut in 1938 in Vichy . Accepting French citizenship in 1945 , Clueitans headed the Opera-Comedian Theater, and in 1949 became the conductor of the Orchestra of the Concert Society of the Paris Conservatory .

Since the beginning of the 1950s, Cluitans has toured with the French National Orchestra in various countries, including the USSR (1959). In 1955, he became the first French conductor to work at the Bayreuth Festival (he directed the production of the opera Tannhäuser ), a year later he performed for the first time with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in the United States, and two years later in London, replacing Otto Klemperer at the orchestra panel “ Philharmonic " .

In 1960, Cluitans returned to Belgium, where he became the head of the National Orchestra of Belgium , without stopping performing as a guest conductor with other groups. So, it was Kluitans who directed the last foreign tour of the Orchestra of the Concert Society in May 1964 , and in 1965 he again performed at the Bayreuth Festival, where he conducted the productions of Parsifal and Tannhäuser. He died of cancer in 1967.

Kluitans became famous as a performer of the music of Viennese classics - Mozart and Beethoven , as well as Wagner's operas. An important place in his repertoire was occupied by the music of French composers of the romantic era and the 20th century: under his direction, the premieres of the works of Millau , Jolive , Messiane , France were held . Among his recordings are a complete collection of Beethoven symphonies (with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra ), operas by French romantics, choral works by Berlioz and Foret , works by Schubert , List , Shostakovich , Ravel .