Harry Kupfer (Photo: Reto Klar)
Harry Kupfer, the longtime opera director of Berlin’s Komische Oper, has died at the age of 84. Kupfer’s management agency says he died Monday “after lengthy illness” in Berlin. His career began in Stralsund, then part of communist East Germany, in 1958. He became director at the Komische Oper in 1981, a position he held for 21 years. Kupfer gained international attention with his 1978 production of “The Flying Dutchman” in Bayreuth. Kupfer also directed performances in Sydney, Barcelona, Helsinki, Salzburg, Shanghai and New York. He returned to the Komische Oper a final time earlier this year, with Handel’s “Poro.”
