Biography
Werner Egk was born Werner Mayer on 17 May 1901 in Auchsesheim near Donauwörth and died on 10 July 1983 in Inning am Ammersee. From 1921 he took private lessons with Carl Orff in Munich before studying philosophy and musicology. He adopted the pen name Egk, formed from the initials of his wife Elisabeth Karl, upon their marriage in 1923 and made it his official surname in 1937. During the Nazi era he was among Germany's most performed composers and was placed on the 1944 'Gottbegnadeten' list; after the war he directed the Berlin Musikhochschule in the early 1950s and later the ballet of the Bavarian State Opera. Regarded as a representative of German neoclassicism, Egk wrote operas such as 'Die Zaubergeige', 'Peer Gynt' and 'Der Revisor', among the most successful German stage works of his time.
On Stagelog
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