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Clemens Krauss

Clemens Krauss

Born: 31st March 1893, Vienna

Died: 16th May 1954, Mexico City

Nationality: Austrian

Clemens Heinrich Krauss was an Austrian conductor and opera impresario, particularly associated with the music of Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss and Richard Wagner.

Krauss was born in Vienna to Clementine Krauss, then a 15-year-old dancer in the Vienna Imperial Opera Ballet, later a leading actress and operetta singer, niece of the prominent nineteenth-century operatic soprano Gabrielle Krauss. His natural father, Chevalier Hector Baltazzi (1851-1916), came from a family of wealthy Phanariot bankers resident in Vienna. Baltazzi's older sister Helene was married to Baron Albin Vetsera and was the mother of Baroness Mary Vetsera, who was accordingly Clemens Krauss' first cousin.

Krauss sang in the Hofkapelle (Imperial Choir) as a Vienna Choir Boy. He graduated from the Vienna Conservatory in 1912, after studying composition with Hermann Graedener and theory with Richard Heuberger there.

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