Tietjen, Heinz.

Tietjen, Heinz, born 24-06-1881 in Tanger, Morroco, to Wilhelm Tietzen (1846–1884) and his wife Jessie (1859–1904), aus Gibraltar, was a pupil of Arthur Nikisch. Nikisch died, age 66, on 23-12-1922 in Leizig.

  After the death of his father, his mother moved to Constantinople in 1884 with three-year-old Heinz.. In 1891 she returned to Germany with him.Tietjen was 3 years old. He attended high school in Wiesbaden and, after completing a commercial apprenticeship, worked for the “Bremen-Westafrika-Gesellschaft” in today’s Namibia. However, he had to give up his goal of pursuing a diplomatic career like his father because of an eye condition. During a trip he met the Hungarian conductor →Arthur Nikisch (1855–1922), who advised him to study music. After training as a conductor with the mentor in the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, he conducted his first engagements at the Apollo Theater in Posen, on Borkum and in Danzig. At the age of 23, Heinz went to the Stadttheater Trier in 1904, where he quickly advanced from second conductor and choir director to principal conductor. Heinz became the producer at the opera house in Trier and in 1907 he became it’s director. From 1919 until 1922 he was also director of the opera’s of Saarbrücken and Breslau. In 1925 he became the director of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and subsequently of the Prussian State Theatre. Already with his mother, a friend of Cosima Wagner, Heinz. has attended the Bayreuth Festival since 1898.

Allthough the nazi’s initially didn’t trust him, Hermann Goering (did you know) asked him as early as 1932 if he would be willing to keep his position in Berlin. From 1931 to 1944 he was also artistic director at Bayreuth, where he was romantically involved with Winifred Wagner, they had an intimate relation.

    Her children called him “die Eule”, “the Owl”. Adolf Hitler (did you know) declared him and Wilhelm Fürtwangler as members of the state counsel.

After the war he scolded the Wagners, but in later years he was again in contact with Winnifred. However he had to undergo a denazification trial, but it was decided that he was innocent and he was allowed to continue his career. Later he presented himself as a kind of resistance man. From 1948 to 1954 he was the director of the Städtischen Oper Berlin and from 1956 until 1959 he directed the Staatsoper in Hamburg where his production of Wagner’s “Ring” Richard Wagner  was very successful.

Death and burial ground of Tietjen, Heinz.

 

In 1959 he, on the right photo with Hermann Goering, retired and die old age 85 on 30-11-1967. Heinz Tietjen is buried on the Hauptfriedhof of Baden Baden, with his wife Lieselotte, who died at the old age 104, on 27-10-2015. Liselot was a solo dancer at d. State Opera in Berlin, when they met.

Close by the graves of Stalingrad Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus “Der Lord”, General der Flieger, Commander of Directing Office of Catch Command West, Erich Fitzau, General der Luftnachtrichtentruppe, Kommandeur Luftsignal Instruction Staff, Friedrich Fähnert, Generalleutnant der Artillerie, Kommandeur der XXXXI Panzerkorps, Rudolf Holste, the protector of Paris, General der Infanterie,Kommandeur der XXV Korps, Dietrich von Choltitz Generalmajor der Infanterie, Kommandeur 172^th Infanterie Division, Woldemar Rieberg and Wolfgang Preiss the WWII war movies actor. Choltitz’s funeral was attended by a number of high ranking French Army officers.

 Bayreuth Festival 1936 Tietjen at a meeting with Marta Fuchs (Kundry) and Ivar F. Andresen (Gurnemanz) at the rehearsal for the Parsifal.

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