QUELER, EVE

QUELER, EVE (1936– ), U.S. conductor. Born in New York City, Queler studied horn and piano at Mannes College and conducting with joseph rosenstock , Carl Bamberg, Walter susskind , leonard slatkin , Igor Markevich, and Herbert Blomstedt in Europe. Her career was temporarily interrupted following her marriage in 1956 but she later returned to study conducting and she became a rehearsal pianist for the New York City Opera. Her conducting debut in opera came in 1966, at Fairlawn, N.J. Because of the few opportunities offered to women conductors, she founded the Opera Orchestra of New York in 1968 with the aim of giving opera in concert performances and it met with increasing success and popularity. A leading exponent of forgotten opera, she worked to make them known with the participation of many major singers, including June Anderson, Carlo Bergonzi, Montserrat Caballé, Placido Domingo, Jane Eaglen, René Fleming, and Renata Scotto. A combination of determination in the face of great odds and a natural flair for opera gained Queler a position in the front rank of women conductors. She also appeared as a guest conductor at the New York City Opera, the Kirov Mariinsky Opera, the Hamburg Staatsoper, and the Frankfurt Opera as well as with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Montreal SO, and Honolulu SO. Queler also wrote a number of journal articles and   supervised critical editions of three Donizetti operas. She made recordings of Jenůfa, Strauss's Guntram and Boito's Nerone. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Grove Music Online. (Max Loppert / Israela Stein (2nd ed.)