Maurice Abravanel's roots traced back to one of the most prominent Sephardic Jewish families in history. Born in Thessaloniki (then part of the Ottoman Empire) on January 6, 1903, he descended from Don Isaac Abravanel, who had served as finance minister to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain and helped fund Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Americas. Like many Sephardic Jewish families, the Abravanels were forced to leave Spain in 1492, eventually settling in Thessaloniki in 1517.
In 1909, the six-year-old Maurice moved with his family to Lausanne, Switzerland, where his father established a drugstore after being unable to practice as a pharmacist without Swiss credentials. The young Abravanel's musical talent emerged early - by age twelve he was composing and orchestrating music, and at sixteen he conducted his first orchestra. Living next door to conductor Ernest Ansermet proved fortuitous, as the young Maurice played piano duets with him and met influential composers like Igor Stravinsky and Darius Milhaud.
Despite his clear musical inclinations, Abravanel's father insisted on a medical career. After two miserable years studying medicine at the University of Zürich, where he particularly disliked dissecting corpses, Maurice convinced his father to let him pursue music, declaring he would rather be "second percussionist in an orchestra than a doctor."
In 1922, the nineteen-year-old Abravanel moved to Berlin during the Weimar Republic. There he began studying with composer Kurt Weill, forming a close friendship that would influence both their careers. Though Abravanel later described Weill as "a lousy teacher," their professional association and personal bond lasted until Weill's death in 1950.
Maurice Abravanel (1903-1993)
Musical director Maurice Abravanel, composer Kurt Weill, and tenor Brian Sullivan
The rise of Nazi power in Germany forced both Jewish musicians, like many others, to flee in 1933. Abravanel followed Weill to Paris, where he worked with conductor Bruno Walter and served as music director of Balanchine's Paris Ballet. Walter recommended Abravanel as a guest conductor at the Paris Opera, and he was able to cast, rehearse, and conduct Mozart's Don Giovanni there. He also led the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris under Pierre Monteux.
After Paris, Abravanel's career took him to Australia, where he conducted opera in Melbourne and Sydney. After a six-week journey through the Suez Canal and across the Indian Ocean, he was welcomed as the "eminent continental conductor." He conducted a 13-week season in Melbourne and a two-month season in Sydney with Verdi's Aida as the opener in both cities and a balanced selection of the standard repertoire, including Puccini, Wagner and Bizet. When asked in a conversation with Bruce Duffie in 1985 about his journey he said,
"...I started rehearsing. I was one of three foreigners. There was a coach from the Berlin Opera, whom I had recommended, who had been an assistant to Leo Blech, and there was a tenor who had been at the Met [and Chicago!], a Belgian named Octave Dua."
In 1936, an unexpected offer changed his trajectory - the Metropolitan Opera in New York hired him as their youngest conductor ever at age 33. During his two-year tenure, he accomplished the remarkable feat of conducting seven performances of five different operas in just nine days, all without rehearsal.
After leaving the Met in 1938, Abravanel maintained his connection with Kurt Weill by conducting several of his Broadway works, including "Knickerbocker Holiday," "Lady in the Dark," and "Street Scene." He became a U.S. citizen in 1943.
In 1947, Abravanel accepted the position that would define the remainder of his career - music director of the Utah Symphony. Over three decades, he transformed a part-time community orchestra into an internationally recognized ensemble. Under his leadership, the Utah Symphony made over 100 commercial recordings, including the first complete cycle of Mahler symphonies by an American orchestra. He championed contemporary music and conducted works by American composers throughout his tenure.
Abravanel was married three times: to singer Friedel Schako in 1933 (the marriage ended in 1940 when she left him for conductor Otto Klemperer), to Lucy Menasse Carasso in 1947 until her death, and finally to Carolyn Firmage in 1987. He died in Salt Lake City on September 22, 1993, at age 90. The city's Symphony Hall, which he had lobbied to build, was renamed Abravanel Hall in his honor shortly before his death.
His numerous accolades included a Tony Award for conducting Blitzstein's "Regina" (1950), appointment to the first music panel of the National Endowment for the Arts (1970), the American Symphony Orchestra League's Golden Baton (1981), and the National Medal of Arts from President George H. W. Bush (1991). A reconstruction of Abravanel's home studio--including his conducting scores, books, his Tony Award and National Medal of Arts, his Steinway, writing table, and personal memorabilia and photographs, is housed within McKay Music Library in the University of Utah's Gardner Hall.
Sources
In conversation with Bruce Duffie, 1985 (accessed January 2025)
Maurice Abravanel biography at University of Utah, https://music.utah.edu/mckay-music-library/abravanel/abravanel-bio.php
