Henry Holt; Conductor of Seattle ‘Ring’ Festival, Director of L.A. Opera Theater

Henry Holt, a conductor and music educator who began his opera career in Los Angeles and gained international fame for conducting Wagner’s “Ring” cycle in Seattle, has died. He was 63.

Holt, former music director and general director of the Los Angeles Opera Theater, died Saturday at the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, Va., of non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

Holt grew up in Los Angeles and began his work with opera here before the city had its own opera company. He returned in 1984 to serve as music director and then general director of the Los Angeles Opera Theater when it performed in the Wilshire Ebell Theatre. At the same time, he was co-chairman of the opera department at USC and worked as director of the Baton Rouge Opera in Louisiana. Holt, who encouraged formation of Los Angeles’ permanent opera company, saw himself as “a pioneer and a builder of opera,” he told The Times in 1983.

Holt established his global reputation in the Northwest. Beginning in 1966, he spent 17 years balancing opera, symphony and ballet as music director of the Seattle Opera, education director and conductor of special events for the Seattle Symphony and conductor of the Pacific Northwest Ballet.

In Seattle he conducted Richard Wagner’s “Der Ring des Niebelungen” for 10 years at the Pacific Northwest Wagner Festival, which he helped found. Last year, he served as artistic director of the “Ring” cycle for Arizona Opera.

Most recently, Holt worked with the Utah Festival Opera Company, conducting “The Merry Widow” last summer. Last month he saw the opening of the Utah Festival Opera’s new facility in Logan, which will house his arts education program.

Praised by critics across the country, Holt was hailed by former Times music critic Martin Bernheimer for his “extraordinary breadth, power and sensitivity.” Time magazine stated that “his conducting has warmth and authority.”

Over the years, Holt appeared as guest conductor with city operas in New York, Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, Winnipeg and San Diego and state opera companies in Minnesota, Utah and Hawaii. He also led the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and symphony orchestras in Spokane, Vancouver, Denver and Phoenix.

In addition to posts in Los Angeles and Seattle, Holt held permanent conducting positions in Koblenz, Germany, and in Portland, Ore.

Born in Vienna, Holt escaped with his family from the Nazi occupation, going to France and England and finally ending up in Los Angeles. Educated at Los Angeles City College, USC and Northwestern University in Illinois, he was greatly influenced by his uncles, the conductor Herbert Zipper and an other conductor also named Henry Holt.

In addition to his conducting, Holt was known for his commitment to educating children in the arts. He worked extensively with the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts and the Kennedy Center Education Program, and was a contributor to E.D. Hirsch’s national Core Knowledge movement for children’s education. He directed opera workshops and taught classes in conducting, coaching and accompanying at USC, Los Angeles City College, Lewis and Clark College and Louisiana State University. He was also music director for workshops in San Francisco and Washington.

Holt is survived by his wife, Rebecca Ravenshaw-Holt of Warrenton, Va.; her two children, Kitran and Devin Colwell; a sister, Lucy Horwitz of Boston; a niece, Celia Pool of Los Angeles; and a nephew, Gavin Perry of St. Louis.

The family has asked that memorial contributions be made to either the Utah Festival Opera Dansante Arts Project at Box 3489, Logan, Utah 84322, or the Core Knowledge Foundation, 2012-B Morton Drive, Charlottesville, Va. 22903.