Fritz Zweig was born on September 8, 1893, in Olmütz (present-day Olomouc), part of Moravia. He studied composition and music theory privately with Arnold Schoenberg, first in Vienna and later in Berlin. He began his career as a music director in 1913 at the Hoftheater in Mannheim, though he had to put his career on hold to serve in the military in World War I. After the war, he returned to Mannheim and then moved on to the Stadttheater in Barmen-Elberfeld. He settled in Berlin in 1923, where he conducted at the Große Volksoper and the Städtische Oper before being appointed to the Berlin State Opera in 1927.
He married the soprano Tilly de Garmo in 1924. In 1933, both were dismissed as Jews under the “Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service” and fled to France. From 1934, he worked as a music director at the German Theater in Prague, but in 1938 he was once again forced to leave following the German annexation of Czechoslovakian territory. He then returned to Paris, where he conducted at the Grand Opéra, and appeared as a guest conductor at the Royal Opera House in London. In 1940, he and his wife fled to the United States.
At first, he struggled to make a living as a music teacher, but he was eventually engaged again as a conductor in New York, San Francisco, and other cities. He moved to Los Angeles in 1947, where he taught at the Music Academy of the West, founded in Santa Barbara by German émigrés. Fritz Zweig died on February 28, 1984, in Los Angeles.
1893 Olomouc
1984 Los Angeles