German Conductor Michael Boder has Died, Aged 65

Boder was regarded as a specialist for 20th and 21st century music, and conducted state operas all over the world

Michael Boder was a guest conductor at the state operas in Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, and Munich, as well as in London, San Francisco, Italy, and Tokyo. Among others, he led world premieres by composers including Hans Werner Henze, Krzysztof Penderecki, Manfred Trojahn, and Aribert Reimann. 

Before his death, Boder was leading an ongoing project commemorating Arnold Schönberg’s 150th birthday anniversary with Austria’s Musiktheater an der Wien, where he has held a close partnership for many years.

Boder was born in Darmstadt, Germany, in 1958. He studied at the Hamburg Music Academy before going to Florence, where he was mentored by Riccardo Muti and Zubin Mehta.

He first worked as Michael Gielen’s assistant at the Frankfurt Opera. At 29, he was appointed music director and chief conductor of the Basel Opera from 1989 to 1993. 

His concert engagements included appearances with the Hamburg Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Oslo Philharmonic, Zurich Tonhalle, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Santa Cecilia Rome, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and more. 

His other roles included music director at Barcelona’s Gran Teatre del Liceu from 2008 to 2012, after which he was chief conductor at the Royal Danish Opera until 2016. 

In recent decades, Boder was a regular guest at the Theater an der Wien, where he directed new productions of Stravinsky’s The Rake's Progress, Schubert’s Lazarus, von Einem’s The Visit of the Old Lady, Schreier’s Hamlet, and Jost’s Egmont, and directed the theater’s 2011/12 season opening. 

“The MusikTheater an der Wien is saddened to mourn the loss of conductor Michael Boder,” the opera company wrote in a tribute. “He died at the age of 65 on April 7th in Vienna. Like no other, he dedicated himself to modernism and contemporary music theater and was able to achieve great success, especially in Vienna.

“The sudden death of this highly esteemed colleague and artist leaves a painful void and is a great loss for the MusikTheater an der Wien and the world of music,” the tribute continued. “Our thoughts and deep sympathy are with Michael Boder's partner and his beloved family.”

“During our first collaboration — Alban Berg’s Lulu in 2010 — I got to know Michael as an artist whose satisfaction depended on whether he managed to get the best out of his counterpart fetch,” added the company’s director Stefan Herheim. “Michael’s heart pounded to the last beat for this artistic interplay. Rest easy, dear friend.”

Our condolences to Mr. Boder’s family, friends, and colleagues.