Stefan Soltész (Nyíregyháza, Hungary 6.1.1949 - Munich 22.7.2022), Hungarian-Austrian conductor (born as István - Germanized to Stefan - and raised until the age of 7 in Hungary) died while conducting the opera 'Die Schweigsame Frau' by his favorite composer Richard Strauss at the Nationaltheater München (Germany).
In Flanders, the public came to know the conductor in the '90s ('92-'97) of the last century when he was conductor and music director of Vlaamse Opera (now OperaVlaanderen).
As a four-year-old child, he began playing violin. Later, once the family was settled in Vienna (1956 after the Hungarian uprising), he became a member of the Wienersängerknaben. At the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, he studied conducting with the great master Hans Swarovsky.
His career started in 1971 at the Theater an der Wien (der Wien is a river in Austria that nowadays flows into the Donaukanal in 'Wien' - Vienna). A few years later, after a stint at the Wiener Staatsoper, he became assistant to the greatest names of their time, including Herbert von Karajan and Karl Böhm.
It brought him to numerous stages and he became successively music director and/or principal conductor of various opera houses in Germany and Flanders.
Apart from these permanent engagements, he was a guest conductor at numerous stages for both opera and symphony orchestras.
The soft consolation for his loved ones, his colleagues and the public is that he left the world while fully committed to one of the operas of his favorite composer. In a way, this completes his story.