Wilhelm Schüchter

Wilhelm Schüchter (15 December 1911 – 27 May 1974) was a German conductor. Between 1959 and 1962, he was the music director of the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo and is credited for raising its standards to an international level. He was Generalmusikdirektor in Dortmund from 1962 until his death. He opened the new opera house in 1966 with Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss, and conducted the world premiere of the opera Eli by Walter Steffens after the drama of Nelly Sachs in 1967. He left a legacy of opera recordings, especially of excerpts sung in German.