Editing Otto Klemperer (section)

===German opera houses===
From Prague, Klemperer moved to be assistant conductor at the [[Hamburg State Opera]] (1910–1912), where the [[sopranos]] [[Lotte Lehmann]] and [[Elisabeth Schumann]] made their joint débuts under his direction.<ref name=times>"Dr Otto Klemperer", ''The Times'', 9 July 1973, p. 16</ref>{{refn|At the Hamburg Opera Klemperer came to international attention for the first time, but not for musical reasons: the husband of one the singers of the company attempted to horsewhip him during a performance. Klemperer jumped off the podium and came at his assailant with bare fists. The incident was much reported in foreign newspapers.<ref>"Real Drama at the Opera", ''London Evening News'', 29 December 1912, p. 3; "Whips Conductor in Opera House", ''Ottawa Free Press'', 24 January 1913, p. 13; "In Hamburg Theater", ''The Cincinnati Enquirer'', 29 December 1912, p. 4; "Horsewhip at an Opera", ''Geelong Advertiser'', 8 February 1913, p. 4</ref> The attacker's motives were not recorded at the time, but according to [[Walter Legge]]'s memoirs, the assailant's wife was Elisabeth Schumann and Klemperer was having an affair with her.<ref>Schwarzkopf, p. 171</ref>|group=n}} His first chief conductorship was at [[Barmen]] (1912–1913), after which he moved to the much larger [[Opéra national du Rhin|Strasbourg Opera]] (1914–1917) as deputy to Pfitzner. From 1917 to 1924 he was chief conductor of the [[Cologne Opera]].<ref name=grove/><ref>Heyworth (1985), p. 11</ref> During his Cologne years he married [[Johanna Geisler]], a singer in the opera company, in 1919. She was a Christian, and he had converted from Judaism.<ref name=anb>Keene, pp. 790–791</ref> He remained a practising Roman Catholic until 1967, when he left the faith and returned to Judaism.<ref name=h62>Heyworth (1985), p. 62</ref> The couple had two children: [[Werner Klemperer|Werner]], who became an actor, and Lotte, who became her father's assistant and eventually, his caregiver.<ref name=nyt/><ref>Schwarzkopf, p. 172</ref> Johanna continued her operatic career, sometimes in performances conducted by her husband. She retired from singing by the mid-1930s.<ref>Heyworth (1996, Vol 2), pp. 76 77</ref> The couple remained close and mutually supportive until her death in 1956.<ref>Heyworth (1996, Vol 1), pp. 264 265; and (1996, Vol 2), pp. 75, 124 125 and 258</ref>

In 1923, Klemperer turned down an invitation from the [[Berlin State Opera]] to succeed [[Leo Blech]] as musical director; he declined the post, because he did not believe he would be given enough artistic authority over productions.<ref name=h63>Heyworth (1985), pp. 63–65</ref> The following year, he became conductor at the [[Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden|Prussian State Theatre]] in Wiesbaden (1924–1927), a smaller theatre than others in which he had worked, but one where he had the control he sought over stagings.<ref name=h63/> There he conducted new, and often modernistic, productions of a range of operas from ''[[The Marriage of Figaro]]'', ''[[Don Giovanni]]'', ''[[Fidelio]]'' and ''[[Lohengrin (opera)|Lohengrin]]'' to ''[[Elektra (opera)|Elektra]]'' and ''[[The Soldier's Tale]]''. He found his tenure there rewarding and fulfilling, later describing it as the happiest of his career.<ref>Heyworth (1996, Vol 1), pp. 200–201, and 208</ref>

Klemperer visited Russia in 1924, conducting there during a six-week stay; he returned each year until 1936.<ref>Levin, Bernard. "Klemperer Concerto", ''The Observer'', 3 June 1973, p. 37</ref> In 1926 he made his American début, succeeding [[Eugene Aynsley Goossens|Eugene Goossens]] as guest conductor of the [[New York Symphony Orchestra]].<ref>"The World of Music", ''Brooklyn Daily Eagle'', 3 January 1926, p. 2E</ref> In his eight-week engagement with the orchestra he gave Mahler's [[Symphony No. 9 (Mahler)|Ninth Symphony]] and Janáček's [[Sinfonietta (Janáček)|Sinfonietta]], in their first performances in the US.<ref name=anb/><ref name=nyt>Montgomery, Paul L. [https://www.nytimes.com/1973/07/08/archives/otto-klemperer-conductor-dead-at-88-otto-klemperer-conductor-noted.html "Otto Klemperer, Conductor, Dead at 88"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221221164519/https://www.nytimes.com/1973/07/08/archives/otto-klemperer-conductor-dead-at-88-otto-klemperer-conductor-noted.html |date=21 December 2022 }}, ''The New York Times'', 8 July 1973, p. 1</ref>