Biography
Max von Schillings was born in Düren in 1868 and initially studied law in Bonn and Munich before turning to music in the circle of Alexander Ritter and Richard Strauss. His first opera, 'Ingwelde,' was successfully premiered in 1894; from 1908 to 1918 he served as Generalmusikdirektor of the Stuttgart court theatre, and from 1919 as Intendant of the Prussian State Opera in Berlin, until he was summarily dismissed in 1925 after conflicts with the Prussian minister of culture. Most of his Wagnerian-style operas fell into obscurity, with the exception of 'Mona Lisa' (1915), his greatest success. In 1932 he became president of the Prussian Academy of Arts and joined the NSDAP in 1933; in that role he drove the expulsion of Jewish and modernist artists, including Arnold Schoenberg and Franz Schreker, from the Academy. Schillings died in Berlin in 1933.
On Stagelog
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