Varviso, Silvio
Varviso, Silvio
Varviso, Silvio, Swiss conductor; b. Zürich, Feb. 26, 1924. He studied piano at the Zürich Cons, and conducting in Vienna with Clemens Krauss. In 1944 he made his debut at St. Gallen, conducting Die Zauberflöte,and remained at the theater there until 1950. He then conducted at the Basel Stadttheater, where he later served as its music director (1956-62). He also made guest appearances in Berlin and Paris in 1958, and then made his U.S. debut with the San Francisco Opera in 1959. On Nov. 26,1961, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y., conducting Lucia di Lammermoor;he remained on its roster until 1966 and returned there in 1968-69 and in 1982-83. In 1962 he made his British debut at the Glyndebourne Festival; later that year he made his first appearance at London´s Covent Garden. In 1969 he made his Bayreuth Festival debut with Der fliegende Holländer. From 1965 to 1972 he was chief conductor of the Royal Theater in Stockholm; after serving as Generalmusikdirektor at the Württemberg State Theater in Stuttgart (1972-80), he was chief conductor of the Paris Opéra (1980-86).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire