Rosenstock, Joseph
Rosenstock, Joseph
Rosenstock, Joseph , Polish-born American conductor; b. Kraków, Jan. 27, 1895; d. N.Y., Oct. 17, 1985. He studied in Kraków and at the Vienna Cons., and also received instruction from Franz Schreker. He was asst. conductor at the Stuttgart Opera (1919–20), a conductor (1920–22) and Generalmusikdirektor (1922–25) at the Darmstadt Opera, and Generalmusikdirektor at the Wiesbaden Opera (1927–29). On Oct. 30, 1929, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. conducting Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg; returning to Germany, he became Generalmusikdirektor at the Mannheim National Theater in 1930. As a Jew, he was removed from his post by the Nazis in 1933; he then conducted the Judisches Kulturbund in Berlin until 1936. He went to Tokyo to become conductor of the Nippon Phil. (1936); as an alien, he lost his post and was removed to Karuizawa with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941; after his liberation in 1945, he returned to Tokyo to help reorganize musical life under the U.S. occupation forces. In 1946 he settled in the U.S.; became a naturalized citizen in 1949. He became a conductor at the N.Y.C. Opera in 1948, and subsequently was its general director (1952–56); after serving as music director of the Cologne Opera (1958–60), he conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in N.Y. (1960–69). His wife was Herta Glaz .
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire