Silvio Varviso

Silvio Varviso (26 February 1924 – 1 November 2006) was a Swiss conductor who spent most of his career devoted to conducting opera. He began his conducting career working in minor opera houses in Switzerland in the mid-1940s. He became the principal conductor of the opera house in Basel in 1956 where he served for six years. In the late 1950s he began appearing with major opera houses on the international stage as a guest conductor. During the 1960s, he became a fixture at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City and at the Royal Opera House in London. In 1965 he became the music director of the Royal Swedish Opera, and later in his career served as the music director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart and the Paris Opera. During the early 1990s he became a permanent guest conductor at the Vlaamse Opera where he remained active up until his death.

Although Silvio Varviso's father was a voice teacher, Varviso avoid this art. While attending the Zurich Conservatory he studied the piano, violin, clarinet, trumpet and percussion instruments. He continued his study of conducting after graduating with the Austrian conductor Clemens Krauss in Vienna.

Varviso made his conducting debut at age 20 leading Mozart's The Magic Flute at the Stadttheater in St. Gallen, Switzerland. Over the next several years he worked as a guest conductor with minor houses throughout Switzerland. He became principal conductor of the Theater Basel (1956–1962) where he led several productions of operas by Mozart and works from the bel canto repertory. He also conducted the first German-language performance of Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel.

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