The son of opera director Josef Gielen, Michael Gielen, was born in Dresden in 1927. He began his musical career as a repetiteur at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, the place his family had emigrated to. In 1949, he gave a solo concert there, performing the complete piano works of Arnold Schonberg. Michael Gielen returned to Europe in 1951: he became conductor and repetiteur at the Vienna State Opera and began a successful career in the concert field. He developed an early interest in contemporary music and became known for his outstanding performances of Viennese classical music and works by Bruckner and Mahler. He conducted at all the important music capitals of Europe; he worked particularly closely with the radio orchestras in Stuttgart, Cologne, Frankfurt/Main, Vienna and with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden.
In the course of his long career, Michael Gielen was Music Director of the Royal Opera in Stockholm, the Belgian National Orchestra in Brussels, the Dutch Opera and the Frankfurt Opera. He has also been Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Staatskapelle Berlin as well as Chief Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Sudwestfunk Symphony Orchestra, with whom he has also given concerts at the Edinburgh Festival and the Salzburg Festival.
Michael Gielen’s conducting activities at the Frankfurt Opera became known for many artistically advanced, sometimes controversial productions, such as the internationally acclaimed performances of Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen directed by Ruth Berghaus. In 1989, Michael Gielen appeared with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and in 1994 he returned to the Berlin State Opera for a production of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. In 1995, he conducted a new production of Berg’s Lulu at the Salzburg Festival, which he later also performed at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. A year later, he conducted a highly acclaimed performance of Beethoven’s Fidelio, also at the Salzburg Festival. In 2000, he led a new production of Mozart’s Idomeneo at the Geneva Opera.
After conducting the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for the first time in the USA in 1971, he was invited to conduct American orchestras several times: in Detroit, Houston, Seattle and Cincinnati, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Chicago. He has also worked with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and performed with the Orchestre de Paris. A production of Janáček’s From the House of the Dead took Michael Gielen to the Opera National de Paris.
Like Gustav Mahler, Bruno Maderna and Pierre Boulez, Michael Gielen cultivated both conducting and composing, which allowed him to gain in-depth insights into the music of contemporary composers. He has conducted several world premieres of important 20th century works such as Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s opera Die Soldaten and Gyorgy Ligeti’s Requiem. Of the numerous recordings made under the direction of Michael Gielen, a production of Schonberg’s Moses and Aron is especially noteworthy. An extensive edition (83 CDs) was released on the SWRmusic label between 2016–2020. Michael Gielen was awarded the Cannes Classical Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002 for his achievements as a conductor. His autobiography Unbedingt Musik was published in 2008. Michael Gielen died on March 8, 2019 in Mondsee.