What means the most to a person in life is perhaps never more apparent than in those moments when his life is in danger. In Mikhail Jurowski's case, this was - apart from his family - music. He replied to the question of what had been on his mind during this time that he had gone through his entire repertoire of operas, ballets and symphonic works note by note in his head when he had been in hospital for weeks after his heart attack on the evening of 24 November 1996. In the second act of a performance of Mussorgsky's BORIS GODUNOV, the 51-year-old had suffered a heart attack at the Deutsche Oper Berlin at that time, only one week after his debut at the house, and was hovering between life and death. 

Only this life for and with music explains why the conductor was drawn back to the podium just a few months later and continued the successful career that had taken him to many opera houses and symphony orchestras after his emigration from Russia in 1989, including as chief conductor at the Leipzig Opera from 1998 to 2001. The centre of his work, however, remained Berlin and, in addition to the Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Komische Oper, the Deutsche Oper Berlin also became an important place of activity: He was associated with it from 2001 as a "permanent conductor" and during this time distinguished himself with works such as AIDA, FALSTAFF and MADAMA BUTTERFLY above all as a conductor of the Italian repertoire. The high point and end of this collaboration was the rediscovery of Ottorino Respighi's MARIE VICTOIRE, a premiere Jurowski conducted in April 2009. 

Now Mikhail Jurowski, whose sons Vladimir and Dmitri also chose their father's profession, has passed away at the age of 76. The Deutsche Oper Berlin will honour his memory.