Rudolf Moralt was a German conductor, particularly associated with Mozart and the German repertory.

Born in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, he studied there with Walter Courvoisier and August Schmid-Lindner, and was engaged as a répétiteur

Répétiteur

Répétiteur , repetitore , or Korrepetitor / Repetitor , originally from the French verb répéter meaning "to repeat, to go over, to learn, to rehearse"....

 at the Munich State Opera under Bruno Walter

Bruno Walter

Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor. He is considered one of the best known conductors of the 20th century. Walter was born in Berlin, but is known to have lived in several countries between 1933 and 1939, before finally settling in the United States in 1939...

 and Hans Knappertsbusch

Hans Knappertsbusch

Hans Knappertsbusch was a German conductor, best known for his performances of the music of Richard Wagner, Anton Bruckner and Richard Strauss....

 from 1919 until 1923.

He was conductor at the opera house of Kaiserslautern

Kaiserslautern

Kaiserslautern is a city in southwest Germany, located in the Bundesland of Rhineland-Palatinate at the edge of the Palatinate forest . The historic centre dates to the 9th century. It is from Paris, from Frankfurt am Main, and from Luxembourg.Kaiserslautern is home to 99,469 people...

 (1923-28) and musical director of the opera house in Brno

Brno

Brno by population and area is the second largest city in the Czech Republic, the largest Moravian city, and the historical capital city of the Margraviate of Moravia. Brno is the administrative centre of the South Moravian Region where it forms a separate district Brno-City District...

 (1932-34). He also worked in Braunschweig

Braunschweig

Braunschweig , is a city of 247,400 people, located in the federal-state of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located north of the Harz mountains at the farthest navigable point of the Oker river, which connects to the North Sea via the rivers Aller and Weser....

 and Graz

Graz

The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...

 before being appointed chief conductor at the Vienna State Opera

Vienna State Opera

The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...

 in 1940 until his death.

A reliable, unaffected and deeply sympathetic conductor, Moralt was responsible for a high standard of repertory performances in Vienna for almost twenty years. Though overshadowed by the more famous conductors of his time, he nevertheless achieved many notable performances, especially of works by Mozart, Wagner, Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

, Pfitzner

Pfitzner

Pfitzner may refer to:In people* Composer Hans Pfitzner* Nazi politician and historian Josef PfitznerIn other uses* Pfitzner-Moffatt oxidation, a chemical reaction* G. Richard Pfitzner Stadium, located in Prince William County, Virginia, USA...

.

He appeared frequently at the Salzburg Festival

Salzburg Festival

The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...

, and as guest in many other European cities and in South America. His records include a celebrated Ring Cycle, a notable Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni

Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...

and a superbly played Salome

Salome (opera)

Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....

which shows how exceptional his musicianship could be when he had adequate rehearsal time. This little-known recording is amongst the best realizations of the opera, marred only by the fresh but slightly flat singing of Wegner.

He died in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

, aged 56.

Sources

• Grove Music Online, Gerhard Brunner, May 2008.