Heinz Tietjen

Bayreuth Festival 1936 Tietjen at a meeting with Marta Fuchs (Kundry) and Ivar F. Andresen (Gurnemanz) at the rehearsal for Parsifal. Photo: Naumann 9919-36 Heinz Tietjen (24 June 1881 – 30 November 1967) was a German conductor and music producer born in Tangier, Morocco.

Biography Tietjen was born in Tangier, Morocco.

From 1931 to 1944, Tietjen served as artistic director at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus for Winifred Wagner with whom he had a romantic liaison. He was appointed to the Prussian State Council by Prussian Minister President Hermann Göring at the end of 1935, serving until the fall of the Nazi regime. In his capacity as director of the Prussian State Theatre, Tietjen approved the closure of Berlin's Kroll Opera House, which the Nazis had criticized as a cultural institution of "Reds and Jews". He also dismissed 27 non-Aryan employees and canceled the contracts of many Jewish performers. Despite this, post-war denazification proceedings only issued him a mild reprimand for "behaving opportunistically".

In 1948 he returned to the directorship of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, serving until 1954, when he was appointed manager and artistic director of the new Hamburg State Opera, a job he held until 1959.

Heinz Tietjen died in 1967 in Baden-Baden.