Conductor Caspar Richter is dead: stylistically limitless

He had his best time in the Austrian capital, where for 23 years as music director of the United Theaters in Vienna he made sure that even the umpteenth performance of the long-running musicals did not become routine. But Caspar Richter’s conducting career began in Berlin.

Born in Lübeck in 1944, he grew up with many siblings in a clergyman’s household, sang in the church choir, took piano lessons, soon played the organ – and performed as a bar pianist in Travemünde at weekends. While still studying in Hamburg, he founded an ensemble for new music.

He conducted the legendary premiere of the “Titanic” opera in Berlin

In 1969, the shooting star maestro Lorin Maazel brought him to Berlin as his assistant at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. After three years, Richter was offered the position of Kapellmeister. In 1974, for example, he took over the musical direction of Boris Blacher’s music theater “Prussian Fairy Tale”, conducted the world premieres of Karl Hein Wahren’s “Fettklößchen” and Wilhelm Dieter Siebert’s “Downfall of the Titanic”, but also August Everding’s production of “The Merry Widow” with Gwyneth Jones and René Kollo. He also took over the direction of the Rias Youth Orchestra for a few years.

When Maazel received a call to Vienna in 1983, he took Caspar Richter with him to the State Opera there – until Peter Weck wooed him to the United Theaters. Richter builds up the musical orchestra for the Ronacher, the Theater an der Wien and the Raimundtheater, conducts all style-defining shows from “Les Misérables” to “Elisabeth”.

From the 1990s, Caspar Richter also devoted himself to the classical symphonic repertoire with the Czech State Philharmonic in Brno and recorded four CDs with works by Erich Wolfgang Korngold with the Linz Bruckner Orchestra. He passes on his expertise in musical workshops, among other things. Caspar Richter died completely unexpectedly at the age of 78.

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