Lies Askonas Ltd.

Lies Askonas Ltd. was a British classical artists management agency established in 1955 by Lies Askonas (13 August 1913, Vienna, Austria — 20 January 1996, London, UK) and headquartered in London; she was among the first female entrepreneurs who operated an independent business in the male-dominated classical music industry. In 1998, two years after she died, Lies Askonas Ltd. merged with Harold Holt Ltd. to form Askonas Holt. Askonas was born in a cultured Jewish family in Austria and exposed to chamber music, theater, and opera from an early age; her parents, both musicians, knew many distinguished composers and musicians who frequented the Askonas home, including Alma Mahler-Werfel, Lotte Lehmann, Otto Klemperer, Arthur Schnitzler, and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Lies Askonas studied art history with renowned Ernst H. Gombrich in Vienna; as Adolf Hitler's regime raised to power in neighboring Germany, she feared a possible Nazi prosecution, like many fellow Jews in fine arts and academia. In 1938, immediately after the Anschluß, Lies Askonas took an audacious escape route, skiing across the Central Alps; she briefly stayed in Paris before reuniting with her family in England. During the Second World War, she served for British and US-allied intelligence and was briefly on Eisenhower's staff. In the post-WWII years, Askonas started her career in the music business. Lies worked for Walter Legge in the early days of the Philharmonia Orchestra, subsequently joining a renowned impresario, Wilfrid Van Wyck (1904—1983), at his London-based agency. In 1955, encouraged by her long-time friend, soprano Elisabeth Schumann, and backed with a £75 loan from her future husband, Lies Askonas launched an independent agency. Within a few years, she signed many prominent operatic singers and conductors, including Hans Hotter, Set Svanholm, Birgit Nilsson, Lucia Popp, Teresa Berganza, Hermann Prey, Nicolai Gedda, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Galina Gorchakova, István Kertész, Claudio Abbado, and Zubin Mehta. Besides artistic management, Lies Askonas was a concert promoter and proliferated in a highly competitive, predominantly male touring industry. Askonas organized the UK and worldwide tours for The Royal Ballet with Margot Fonteyn, the Philharmonia Orchestra with Carlo Maria Giulini, the Stuttgart Ballet with John Cranko, Symphonie-Orchester Des Bayerischen Rundfunks conducted by Rudolf Kempe, and the Scottish Opera in early years. She brought The Hamburg State Opera to London, as well as Kungliga Operans Kör and Státní Opera Praha to the Edinburgh Festival, for the first time. In the 1950s, Askonas toured the Royal Shakespeare Company with the King Lear production directed by Peter Brook and starring Paul Scofield in the "Eastern Block," an exceptional achievement for a Western promoter at the time.