American Tenor and Conductor Herbert Handt has Died, Aged 97

Handt appeared in all of Italy's major opera houses and founded the Associazione Musicale Lucchese in Lucca

The American tenor, conductor, and music historian Herbert Handt, who had a particular interest in Italian music and who made Italy his adopted home, passed away at the age of 97.

Born in Philadelphia in 1926, Handt studied at the Juilliard School and at Columbia University. At a young age, he spent four years working under Arturo Toscanini and later served an apprenticeship at the Metropolitan Opera, between 1947 and 1948.

Following the World War II, he went to Europe, where he made his debut at the Vienna State Opera in 1949. In the early 1950s, he studied orchestral conducting in Vienna with Hans Swarowsky, and then at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

Handt and his wife, the sculptor Laura Ziegler, settled in Lucca, Italy, in the early 1960s. In 1964, he founded the Associazione Musicale Lucchese, a society that aimed to uncover and promote Lucca's rich musical heritage. The association was to become his life's work, and he served as its artistic director until 2006. 

As a tenor, Handt sang all of the main roles in Italy's most prominent theaters, including at La Scala and the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, as well as in major American opera houses in New York, Chicago, and San Francisco.

As a conductor, he led orchestras such as the La Scala Orchestra; the Rai orchestras in Turin, Milan, Rome, and Naples; the Swiss Radio Orchestras in Lugano, Bern, Zurich, and Geneva; and the English Chamber Orchestra and BBC Orchestra in London.

"I learned with sadness of the passing away of Maestro Herbert Handt, founder and honorary president of the Lucchese Musical Association, a great pioneer in the rediscovery of the immense musical heritage of our city," said Mario Pardini, the Mayor of Lucca.

"Thanks to his commitment, Handt brought masterpieces of Giacomo Puccini's ancestors and other great musicians from Lucca out of the archives and back into the public's sight," he added. "With the foundation in 1964 of the Associazione Musicale Lucchese — of which he was artistic director until 2006 — he was the creator and driving force of a partnership that still today carries forward musical culture and dissemination with great energy."