Varviso, Silvio (1924–2006)

Swiss conductor. He was principal conductor 1950–1962 and music director 1956–62 of the Basel Opera, and music director of the Stockholm Royal Opera 1965–72 and the Paris Opera 1973–85.

He studied in Zurich and Vienna. In 1960 he conducted the first US performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream at San Francisco, and he appeared in New York at the Metropolitan Opera House from 1961, making his debut with Lucia di Lammermoor. In 1962 he gave Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro/The Marriage of Figaro at Glyndebourne and Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier/The Knight of the Rose at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London; he returned to London to conduct operas by Mozart and Puccini. He worked at Stuttgart from 1972 (Lohengrin, 1990) and Bayreuth from 1969 (Der Fliegende Holländer/The Flying Dutchman, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg/The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, and Lohengrin).