Hermann Levi

Biography

Of Jewish confession, wire of the rabbi Benedikt Levi, he was educated in Giessen and Mannheim, before being noticed by Vincenz Lachner. Of 1855 with 1858 Levi studied with the Conservatoire of Leipzig, and after a series of voyages which led it to Paris, it obtained its first station as musical director with Saarbrucken, then in Mannheim in 1861. Of 1862 with 1864 he was principal chief with the German Opera of Rotterdam, then with Karlsruhe until in 1872, date where he left for the Opera State Bavaria to Munich, station which he preserved until in 1896, when health issues obliged it to put a term at its activities.

Levi played a great part in the appreciation of the public for the music of Richard Wagner, of which he was a faithful friend (and this in spite of the Antisémitisme posted of Wagner), and more generally in all the musical life of its time. It is him which directed the first of Parsifal to Bayreuth in 1882. He was also a friend of Anton Bruckner, and contributed largely to the success of his Seventh Symphony while directing it to Munich in 1885 after his creation in Leipzig in 1884 under the rod of Arthur Nikisch.

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