Leo Blech

Leo Blech (21 April 1871 – 25 August 1958) was a German opera composer and conductor who is perhaps most famous for his work at the Königliches Opernhaus (later the Berlin State Opera / Staatsoper Unter den Linden) from 1906 to 1937, and later as the conductor of Berlin's Städtische Oper from 1949 to 1953.

Blech was known for his reliable, clear, and elegant performances, especially of works by Wagner, Verdi, and Bizet's Carmen (which he conducted over 600 times), and for his sensitivity as an accompanist.

From 1899 to 1906, he conducted at the Neues Deutsches Theater in Prague before moving to the Königliches Opernhaus in Berlin.

In 1926 he returned to the Staatsoper unter den Linden, where he remained until Adolf Hitler's antisemitic policies forced him in 1937 into exile in Riga, the capital of Latvia, where he conducted the Latvian National Opera and Ballet Theatre.

With an eye to Blech's substantial German and foreign reputation, Hermann Göring, then Hitler's second in command, issued an order to Major Karl Heise, head of the Schutzpolizei in German-occupied Riga in September 1941, to issue an exit visa to Blech for neutral Sweden,[2] making him the only Jewish survivor in Riga to escape as a result of such high-level intervention.