Jonel Perlea

Ionel Perlea (13 December 190029 July 1970) was a Romanian conductor particularly associated with the Italian and German opera repertories.

Biography Born Ionel Perlea to a Romanian father, Victor Perlea, and a German mother, Margarethe Haberlein, in Ograda, Romania, he moved to Germany with his mother and his brothers after his father died. Perlea was five years old, or according to some sources, ten years old.

He studied in Munich, then in Leipzig. He made his debut at a concert at the Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest in 1919, then worked as répétiteur in Leipzig (1922–23) and Rostock (1923–25). His operatic debut as conductor occurred in Cluj in 1927, when he directed Aida. The following year he made his first appearance at the Bucharest Opera, and was music director of that theatre from 1934 until 1944. He conducted several Romanian premieres of notable foreign masterpieces, such as Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Der Rosenkavalier. Now and then he made guest appearances in Vienna, Stuttgart, Breslau, Berlin, and Paris.

In 1944, he and his wife were arrested in Vienna, Austria, while on their way to Paris. They were held under house arrest, or according to some sources, sent to Mariapfarr concentration camp, until the end of World War II. A street in Bucharest's Sector 1 is named after him.

Selected recordings

1954 – Le Nozze di Figaro – Renata Tebaldi, Italo Tajo, Scipio Colombo, Alda Noni, Giulietta Simionato, Piero de Palma – San Carlo Theater Chorus and Orchestra (Naples) – Hardy Classic 1954 – Manon Lescaut – Licia Albanese, Jussi Björling, Robert Merrill – Rome Opera Chorus and Orchestra – RCA Victor 1955 – Aida – Zinka Milanov, Jussi Björling, Fedora Barbieri, Leonard Warren, Boris Christoff – Rome Opera Chorus and Orchestra – RCA Victor 1956 – Rigoletto – Robert Merrill, Roberta Peters, Jussi Björling, Giorgio Tozzi – Rome Opera Chorus and Orchestra – RCA Victor 1966 – Lucrezia Borgia – Montserrat Caballé, Alfredo Kraus, Shirley Verrett, Ezio Flagello – RCA Italiana Opera Chorus and Orchestra – RCA Victor

Perlea also recorded for Vox during the 1950s, conducting the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and notably leading the accompaniments in concerto recordings of artists such as Gaspar Cassadó, Guiomar Novaes, and Friedrich Wührer.