Greiz origin Hauschild was born in 1937 as son of the journalist and dramaturge Franz Hauschild (1907–1996) in Greiz. His father was co-founder of the "Greizer Musikwochen" and the "Stavenhagen-Wettbewerb". At the age of five, Hauschild received his first piano lessons, later he took up theatre. For his final thesis he designed a stage version of Mozart's
Singspiel Bastien und Bastienne, which was performed at the
Staatsoper Unter den Linden. Until 1956 he was influenced above all by his teacher
Hermann Abendroth, whose "overall personality and authority" he greatly appreciated. After his studies Hauschild began his artistic career as
répétiteur at the
Deutsches Nationaltheater and Staatskapelle Weimar. Also here he composed incidental music for plays. Soon he was allowed to conduct and rehearse contemporary works.
Der fröhliche Sünder of his teacher,
Ottmar Gerster, for the world premiere.
Station in Frankfurt (Oder) From 1963 to 1970 Hauschild was musical director at the
Kleist Theater as well as the GDR
premiere of the opera
Der zerbrochene Krug by Zbynik Vostrak and ''
The Rake's Progress'' by Stravinsky. Further premieres at the
MaerzMusik in Berlin were to follow, among others in 1975 Jürgen Wilbrandt's
Mein Haus hat Erde und Meer (speaker ) and
Ruth Zechlin's
Klavierkonzert (with
Eva Ander), 1976
Wolfgang Strauß'
4. Sinfonie mit Sopran-Solo (with Renate Frank-Reinecke) and
Siegfried Matthus'
Laudate pacem (with Renate Krahmer,
Elisabeth Breul,
Annelies Burmeister, Armin Ude and
Hermann Christian Polster) and in 1977
Köhler's
Der gefesselte Orpheus and
Lothar Voigtländer's
Canto General (with Brigita Šulcová). In 1976 Hauschild succeeded
Herbert Kegel as leader of the
Deutsche Streicherphilharmonie. Even after his move to Leipzig, he cultivated the connection to the capital and was a guest conductor at the Deutsche Staatsoper and the
Komische Oper Berlin.
Choral conducting with the RSO and Rundfunkchor Leipzig After conducting works by
Luciano Berio in Leipzig in late 1977, Hauschild became principal conductor of the
MDR Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra and in parallel head of the
MDR Rundfunkchor Leipzig. In Leipzig, Hauschild maintained the
First Viennese School, thus he continued the "Mozartiana" series begun by Kegel. He also continued to put
Concert performances on the programme (Janáček, Wagner, and others). 1981
Schenker's
"Fanal Spanien 1936", 1983 Lombardis
Zweite Sinfonie and
Krätzschmar's
Heine-Szenen (with Wolfgang Hellmich). He was also responsible for several DDR premieres, such as
Ives's
Holiday Symphony in 1979 , as well as
Zimmermann's
Pax Questuosa and
Dittrich's
Etym in 1984. Like Kegel before him, he always placed contemporary music before Beethoven's
9th Symphony at the end of the season. Moreover, he again invited composer-conductors to Leipzig, such as
Milko Kelemen,
Ernst Krenek and
Witold Lutosławski. This was followed by an increase in the number of concerts. including the complete choral works of Johannes Brahms and several
oratorios by Handel. Extensive guest performances took him to such places as the Soviet Union (with the orchestra) After his departure from Leipzig, it took two seasons before the leadership positions could be filled again with
Max Pommer (orchestra) and
Jörg-Peter Weigle (choir). In the course of his opera performances in Leipzig, Berlin and Dresden, Hauschild became the "Wagner conductor of the hour" by the mid-1980s, as Robert Schuppert put it. At the turn of the year 1984/85, he conducted the orchestra which performed in the
Palast der Republik in Berlin, performing Beethoven's
Symphony No. 9, with the Leipziger Rundfunkklangkörper and soloists
Reiner Goldberg,
Magdalena Falewicz,
Uta Priew and
Hermann Christian Polster, this performance being broadcast live on the first channel of the
Deutscher Fernsehfunk. Hauschild became internationally known in February 1985 through the television broadcast of the
Joachim Herz' production of Weber's
Der Freischütz, which he presented on the occasion of the (40th anniversary of the destruction of Dresden) for the reopening of the
Semperoper. His conducting was highly praised by
John Rockwell in the
New York Times. The Dresden musicologist
Dieter Härtwig (2007) rated Hauschild "among the leading conductors in the GDR".
Relocation to the BRD and Stuttgart After an originally promised There he became
Generalmusikdirektor and chief conductor at the beginning of the 1985/86 season of the
Stuttgarter Philharmoniker. In a statement, he explained that in the summer of 1984, the city of Stuttgart approached him with the request for a permanent guest conducting position, whereby he would take over some of
Hans Zanotelli's tasks. After the GDR authorities agreed to this, he agreed in Stuttgart. In April 1985, however, he realized that the GDR authorities "were no longer fully committed to their promise". He felt that he had a duty to the orchestra members and to the Stuttgart city administration and decided "with a heavy heart" to move to the BRD. In the GDR, on the other hand, he was declared
persona non grata and was henceforth also known among fellow musicians as a notorious ""; his family only received permission to leave the country two years later. Concert tours with the Philharmonic took him to Europe, Japan and the USA. In addition to his engagement in Stuttgart, he was guest conductor of the
Niedersächsisches Staatsorchester Hannover, with which he
premiered Kelemen's
Archetypon in 1986. In 1986 he conducted the
Staatsorchester Stuttgart bei der
Loriot-Inszenierung von Flatows's
Martha am
Staatstheater Stuttgart. With the
NDR Radiophilharmonie oblag ihm 1992 die Uraufführungen von
Tal's
6. Sinfonie.
Director at the Aalto-Theater in Essen In 1991 Hauschild became conductor of the
Saalbau Essen and in 1992 additionally artistic director and general music director of the
Aalto-Theater, a dual function created especially for him. During his term of office the orchestra was awarded the prize "Best Concert Programme of the Season" 1991/92 by the . Under his leadership the ballets
Giselle by
Adolphe Adam and
Der grüne Tisch by
Fritz Cohen, as well as the operas
Lady Macbeth von Mzensk by Dmitri Shostakovich and
Tosca by Puccini, were staged. At the Aalto Theatre, however, he devoted himself above all to the works of
Richard Wagner; he had
Parsifal (1991/92) and
Tristan und Isolde (1992/93) performed there. After seventy years, from 1994 to 1997, together with the director
Klaus Dieter Kirst, whom he knew from Dresden, he brought the tetralogy
Der Ring des Nibelungen to the stage. Already in GDR times, he had developed a "love for Wagner" through the symphonic works of
Bruckner and
Mahler, which, however, had to remain "platonic" for a long time, as he explained in an earlier interview. He also was active conductor e.g. at the
Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano.
Chief conductor in Halle (Saale) and Rostock From 2001 to 2004 he was the successor of the permanent guest conductor
Bernhard Klee and Chief conductor of the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Halle. In 2003 he premiered Jean-Christophe Marti's
H aspiré at the Neues Theater Halle. With reference to the planned orchestra merger, which he rejected, he ended his engagement with the Philharmonic State Orchestra early. Besides his engagement in Halle, he was Generalmusikdirektor of the
Volkstheater Rostock and Chefdirigent of the
Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock from August where he became a permanent guest conductor in 2000. Because, as he later explained, he could not find "an artistic and human consensus" with the artistic director Steffen Piontek, he left the orchestra. Hauschild had been a guest conductor in Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Spain, Finland, Taiwan and other countries. == Teaching commitments ==