The Top 75 Conductors #16: André Cluytens
With recommended recordings
The Top 75 Conductors Series
#16: André Cluytens
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At #16 in my survey of the top 75 conductors of all-time is the Belgian-born French conductor André Cluytens. While Cluytens might fit into the category of “underrated” or “underappreciated” conductors, he had a wide ranging career which covered symphonic, concertos, and other orchestral works, the opera house, as well as the recording studio. While Cluytens gained a reputation for excellence in French repertoire, he was adept at German and Viennese classics as well, and conducted many 20th century works as well. In addition, he became the first French conductor to conduct at the Bayreuth Festival in 1955. While Cluytens’ recorded legacy is not as rich as some of his contemporaries, what we have contains a lot of high quality performances.
André Cluytens (1905 - 1967)
André Cluytens was born in Antwerp to a very musical family, but tragedy struck early when his mother, a soprano at the opera, died when young André was only a year old. He entered the conservatory in Antwerp at the tender age of 9, and graduated at 16 with honors in the areas of piano, harmony, and counterpoint. His father then hired him at the opera house (the Théâtre Royal Français Opera House in Antwerp) to help prepare the chorus and to coach singers. It was there Cluytens made his conducting debut as well, leading Bizet’s Les pêcheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers) in 1926. Promoted to lead conductor for the 1927 season, for the next five seasons Cluytens would lead a broad range of operas including Madama Butterfly, La traviata, La fille du régiment, Ma mère l'oye, Manon, Lucia di Lammermoor, Werther, Les Huguenots, and Salome, along with many more obscure French operas.
In 1932 he was appointed to be the director of the Théâtre du Capitole of Toulouse, where he continued expanding his repertoire with operas such as Boris Godunov, Lohengrin, Ernani, Tannhäuser, Otello, Die Walküre and The Marriage of Figaro. From 1935, he took over in Lyon as well at the Opéra National de Lyon, conducting even more Wagner with Das Rheingold and Siegfried.