Gabriel von Wayditch

Gabriel von Wayditch (28 December 1888, Budapest28 July 1969 New York City) was a Hungarian-American composer whose output consisted primarily of 14 grand operas. The son of Dr. Aloysious (Lajos) von Wayditch von Verbovac (Verbovác), a nobleman and inventor who had taught physics at the University of Pécs, and Helena von Dönhoff, a Prussian baroness, who was according to familytrees related to the ancient magyar Árpád dynasty. Gabriel (Wayditch Gábor) was born in Budapest. He studied piano, conducting, and composition at the National Hungarian Academy of Music (now the Franz Liszt Academy of Music) where his teachers included Franz Liszt’s pupil Emil von Sauer and Hans von Koessler, who was also the teacher of composers Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Ernő Dohnányi, and Kálmán Emmerich. Life and career In 1910, Gabriel von Wayditch began composing his first opera, , for which he also wrote his own Hungarian libretto. But after his parents separated, he emigrated to the United States with his father before completing it, arriving in New York harbor in 1911. In New York City, Wayditch worked as a theater conductor while completing Ópium Álmok, which lasts 4 hours and requires an orchestr