On 22 July, the Austrian conductor Stefan Soltész collapsed during a performance in Munich and died shortly after at the age of 73.

Soltész conducted a spectacle of the Bavarian State Opera, "Die schweigsame Frau" by Richard Strauss at the National Theatre in Munich.

The opera company reported the death with "horror and great sadness".  "Our thoughts are with his wife Michaela," the Bavarian State Opera wrote.

Just a month ago, on 18 June this year, the world-famous conductor Stefan Soltész was guest at the Sofia Opera. He conducted "Parsifal" by Richard Wagner.

He was musical assistant to Karl Böhm, Christoph von Dohnányi and Herbert von Karajan.

Soltész has been a frequent guest conductor at the Vienna State Opera and at major opera houses throughout Europe, such as the Rome Opera, the state opera houses in Berlin, Dresden and Munich, the opera houses in Frankfurt, Cologne and Geneva, the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, the National Theatre in Warsaw and the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest.

He has also appeared at the Dutch Opera in Amsterdam, the Bilbao Opera, the Paris Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, Teatro Bellini in Catania, and Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the opera houses in Washington and San Francisco, the Zurich Opera, the New National Theatre in Tokyo and at the festivals in Glyndebourne, Taipei, Montpellier, Aix-en-Provence, Pisa, Savonlinna, Tongyeong and Baden-Baden.