The ANNOTICO Report

Los Angeles Times
By Chris Pasles
Times Staff Writer
February 18, 2005

Marcello Viotti, music director of Venice's La Fenice Theatre, died
Wednesday in a hospital in Munich, Germany. He was 50. His brother, Silvio
Viotti, announced his death.

The Italian conductor, who also appeared at La Scala in Milan, the
Metropolitan Opera in New York and other major international opera houses,
had a stroke last week during a rehearsal of Jules Massenet's "Manon" with
the Munich Radio Orchestra.

Viotti fell into a coma and never regained consciousness. A German hospital
spokesman said his condition deteriorated rapidly despite surgery for a
blood clot in his carotid artery.

Viotti had been at the Venice theater since 2002, when it reopened after a
fire that burned it to the ground in 1996. The opera house was the site of
five Verdi premieres, including "La Traviata" and "Rigoletto," as well as
works by Bellini and Donizetti.

Known for conducting Italian opera passionately, Viotti also championed
Massenet, whose operas he considered underrated. His first major production
at the Vienna State Opera was Massenet's "Herodiade" in 1995, with Agnes
Baltsa and Placido Domingo. His first major production in Venice was
Massenet's "Thais," and he led that composer's "Roi de Lahore" there last
December and January in a new critical edition that he helped prepare.

Born June 29, 1954, in Switzerland to Italian parents, Viotti studied
piano, singing and cello at the conservatory in Lausanne. He made his debut
in Geneva as conductor of a wind instrument group he founded.

Winning first prize at the Gino Marinuzzi conducting competition in Italy
in 1982 kicked off his increasingly prestigious career. He was permanent
guest conductor of the Teatro Regio in Turin from 1985 to 1987, artistic
director of the Lucerne Opera from 1987 to 1990 and general music director
in Bremen, Germany, from 1990 to 1993.

He was named permanent guest conductor of the Bavaria State Opera in Munich
in 1993. From 1996 to 1999, he was also one of three chief conductors of
the MDR Symphony Orchestra in Leipzig.

In 1998, he became music director of the Munich Radio Orchestra but
resigned his post last fall to protest budget cuts that threatened to
eliminate the orchestra. However, he continued to honor his conducting
engagements, which were scheduled to run through 2006.

At the Met, Viotti had conducted Halevy's "La Juive," Puccini's "La Boheme"
and Verdi's "Aida" in recent seasons. He was scheduled to lead a new
production of Wagner's "Parsifal" in Venice this spring and Verdi's "La
Traviata" with soprano Anna Netrebko at the Salzburg Festival in Austria
this summer.

His recorded legacy includes Ponchielli's "La Gioconda" with Domingo and
Violeta Urmana; solo albums with Domingo, Rolando Villazon, Ramon Vargas
and Vesselina Kasarova; as well as the complete symphonies of Schubert.

"I am so sad to tell you that it is finished. That's it," Silvio Viotti
wrote in a message posted on the conductor's website. "Marcello has
finished his journey on this Earth. I don't know what to say."

In addition to his brother, Viotti is survived by his wife and four
children.

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