Career
Thielemann studied viola and piano at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin and took private lessons in composition and conducting before becoming répétiteur aged 19 at the Deutsche Oper Berlin with Heinrich Hollreiser and working as Herbert von Karajan's assistant. He worked at a number of smaller German theatres including the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen, in Karlsruhe, Hanover, at Düsseldorf's Deutsche Oper am Rhein as First Kapellmeister and in Nürnberg as Generalmusikdirektor before returning to the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1991 to conduct Wagner's Lohengrin. During this time he also assisted Daniel Barenboim at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus.
His 1991/92 season debut in the United States, conducting a new production of Strauss' Elektra in San Francisco was soon followed by engagements at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. In 1997, he became Generalmusikdirektor of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. A report in 2000 stated that Thielemann was to leave the Deutsche Oper in 2001 over artistic conflicts with the then-incoming artistic director Udo Zimmermann. Thielemann remained with the company until 2004, when he resigned over conflicts regarding Berlin city funding between the Deutsche Oper and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden.
Thielemann became principal conductor and music director of the Munich Philharmonic in September 2004. He is scheduled to step down from his Munich post in 2011, after disputes with orchestra management over final approval of selection of guest conductors and programs for the orchestra. In October 2009, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden announced the appointment of Thielemann as its next chief conductor, effective with the 2012/13 season.
Thielemann is a regular conductor at the Bayreuth and the Salzburg Festivals and he has been guest conductor at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the Royal Opera House in London, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Vienna State Opera. With the decision in September 2008 of the Richard Wagner Festival Foundation to appoint Katharina Wagner and Eva Wagner-Pasquier to succeed Wolfgang Wagner as directors of the Bayreuth Festival, Thielemann was named Musical Advisor, effectively the Festival's music director.
He came into confrontation with both of Berlin's other leading conductors, Daniel Barenboim and Simon Rattle. Relations with Barenboim were tense after anti-semitic remarks were attributed in 2000 to Thielemann and subsequently denied. With Rattle, the rivalry was commercial. Thielemann's 2010 New Year's Eve concert from Dresden drew a larger television audience than Rattle's from Berlin and the German conductor was quick to step in when Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic withdrew in 2011 from their long-standing involvement in the Salzburg Easter Festival.
In 2003, Thielemann was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesverdienstkreuz). He is regarded as the leading exponent of the Austro-Germanic conducting tradition, in the manner of Wilhelm Furtwängler and Karajan. In October 2011, he received honorary membership of the Royal Academy of Music in London, a controversial appointment since he rarely conducted in the UK.
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