Bernhard Pollini

Born in Cologne, Pollini came from a strictly Jewish family living in very modest circumstances and was actually called Baruch Pohl. He attended grammar school and then worked for a merchant before he made his debut in 1857 in his native town as Lord Arturo Talbo in the opera I puritani by Bellini. He changed to baritone and in the autumn of 1865, he joined an Italian opera company of which he became impresario. This was the beginning of his career as one of the most important opera directors of his time.

He sang at the Anhaltisches Theater and in the years 1860 and 1861 at the Latvian National Opera. In 1864, he became director of the Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet and then went to St Petersburg and Moscow for a few years, where he was chief impresario of the Italian Opera. In 1874, he became director of the Hamburg State Opera and from 1876, he also directed the Altonaer Theater and from 1894 also the Thalia Theater. Four times a week, he presented opera, twice drama, once operetta or ballet and was so successful that he achieved full houses and handsome surpluses. He brought 175 premieres, 51 of which were world premieres, to the stage and continued his work as opera director until his death.

He engaged important singers and conductors, to whom he paid high fees, to the Hamburg Opera and thus brought it to a high artistic level. Well-known composers such as Puccini and Tchaikovsky were engaged to conduct their own works and, in 1891, Pollini appointed Gustav Mahler as successor to Hans von Bülow as first Kapellmeister at his house. Together with him, he organised a guest performance of his ensemble at the Covent Garden Opera in London, where Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung and other operas were performed under Mahler's direction.

In 1888, he became a citizen of Hamburg and was granted the right by the Senate to bear the artist name Pollini. In 1894, Pollini married the soprano Bianca Bianchi, who, from then on, sang as primadonna in Hamburg. Other important singers that Pollini brought to Hamburg included Albert Niemann (tenor), Katharina Klafsky and Anna von Mildenburg.

Immediately after a Meistersinger performance, Pollini died of heart paralysis.^[1] He was 58.