Mortier, Gérard
Mortier, Gérard
Mortier, Gérard , provocative Belgian opera administrator; b. Ghent, Nov. 25, 1943. He received training in law and journalism at the Univ. of Ghent. From 1968 to 1972 he was an administrative assistant at the Flanders Festival. After serving as artistic planner at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf (1972–73), he was asst. administrator at the Frankfurt am Main Opera (1973–77). From 1977 to 1979 he was director of artistic planning at the Hamburg State Opera, and then technical program consultant to the Paris Opéra (1979–81). In 1981 he became general director of the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, where he raised standards to a new high but provoked much controversy. In 1992 he became artistic director of the Salzburg Festival and proceeded to implement a radical transformation of every facet of the festival’s operations. In spite of the storm of controversy he engendered, he successfully carried out his grand plan to make the festival a viable and creative music center for the dawning of the 21stcentury. His tenure concluded in 2001.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis Mclntire