Max Maretzek

Max Maretzek (Brno, 28 June 1821 – New York, 14 May 1897) was a Czech-born conductor, impresario and composer who spent most of his career in the United States. His career is important for understanding how Italian opera took hold in New York in the mid-nineteenth century.

Before settling in the Americas, he worked as a conductor and composer in central Europe and in Paris. In 1844 he became chorus master at Covent Garden in London. Four years later, in 1848, Edward Fry invited him to conduct Italian opera at the Astor Place Opera House in New York. From 1849 onwards he combined musical direction with company management, first at Astor Place and later chiefly at the Academy of Music, and also toured the United States, Cuba and Mexico. He reportedly managed to assemble excellent singers, and he conducted the American premieres of La traviata (1856) and Don Carlos (1877).

His management helped create a stable audience for opera in New York. In 1878 he withdrew from management, although he continued to conduct and to teach. As a composer he wrote the opera Sleepy Hollow, or The Headless Horseman (1879). He also left two volumes of memoirs, Crotchets and Quavers (1855) and Sharps and Flats (1890), reissued in 1968 under the title Revelations of an Opera Manager in 19th Century America, a valuable testimony to the operatic life of his time.