For 60 years Silvio Varviso wielded his baton in the orchestra pits of the leading opera houses, from the Metropolitan in New York, through Paris to the Vienna State Opera — but his own favourite was Covent Garden: “Here there is time to rehearse properly,” he explained, “to go back to different versions of the score, time also to reconsider markings which have become accepted but which are in fact corruptions.”
He made his debut there with Richard Strauss’s Rosenkavalier in l962. He conducted the first new production of La bohème since l899 there with Placido Domingo and Katia Ricciarelli in 1974; and revived Franco Zeffirelli’s brilliant 1964 production of Tosca at the Garden in l981.
He combined extreme elegance of appearance with rigorous economy of gesture. He never competed with the stars in the glamour and stardom stakes, but won constant critical acclaim. Howard Klein, the New York Times critic, wrote of his taste and “brilliant control”.
He was above all a musicians’ musician: unshowy, almost unassuming, innocent of the driving ambition that characterises so many conductors. Had he been less innocent of that ambition, and enjoyed the support of a record company, he would have been far more widely recognised as one of the leading opera conductors of his time.
As it was, he just enjoyed making music. His Wagner and Strauss at Covent Garden were much admired, and his Puccini cycle in Antwerp was outstanding. He leaves far too few recordings, among them a very fine “live” Bayreuth Meistersinger of 1974 (Philips), stylish and witty accounts of Il barbiere di Siviglia and L’italiana in Algeri (for Decca, both with Teresa Berganza) and, also for Decca, a single disc of excerpts from Der Rosenkavalier with Crespin, Söderström and the Vienna Philharmonic, so warm and sensitive as to be cause for great regret at the absence of a complete recording.
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Varviso was born in Zurich in 1924. His father was a voice coach, which meant a succession of singers streamed through his childhood home. By his late teens he had mastered the piano, violin, clarinet, trumpet and percussion, and he seized the first opportunity to go to Vienna to take master classes in conducting with Clemens Kraus.
In 1944 he was asked to stand in for a conductor on sick leave at St Gallen. The opera was The Magic Flute. Varviso stayed on to lead Carmen as well on subsequent nights. “At St Gallen I had got a smell of the theatre,” he said later, “and I liked the scent. But once you have done your apprenticeship, you must not stand still.”
He did not. For the next 62 years the offers of engagements never stopped. From 1950 to 1962 he was the musical director at Basle. His made a spectacular debut on the international circuit with a performance of Lucia di Lammermoor with Joan Sutherland at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1961. It earned him an immediate passage on to the world circuit and he returned to the Metropolitan Opera frequently. He was also a regular guest in Vienna, Hamburg and Munich. His first appearance at Glyndebourne was conducting Figaro in 1962; and a year later he was first seen at the Proms at the Albert Hall with a concert performance of The Marriage of Figaro.
Varviso was musical director at Stockholm from 1965 to 1971; at Stuttgart from 1972 to 1980 and at the Opéra in Paris from l980 to l985. After that, he never again took a full-time job, but found a permanent base as the principal guest conductor at the Flemish Opera in Antwerp. He started there with a performance of Tosca in l990, and his last two performances were in September this year. His repertoire spanned the Classical, Romantic and modern.
At Bayreuth he conducted Wagner — Der fliegende Holländer and Die Meistersinger. He was also held to be an expert on Richard Strauss’s operas and his version of Handel’s Julius Caesar won wide acclaim.
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He conducted the American premiere of Benjamin Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream in San Francisco in 1960, and the world premieres of Heinrich Sutermeier’s Die Schwarze Spinne (The Black Spider) in 1949 and Titus Feuerfuchs, at the Brussels World Fair in 1958.
Varviso died in his sleep in Antwerp after a day spent poring over the scores for his next performances.
His wife predeceased him.
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Silvio Varviso, conductor, was born on February 26, 1924. He died on November 1, 2006, aged 82