Gustav Mahler had left Prague to take…

Gustav Mahler had left Prague to take up his post as a professional conductor at the Neues Stadttheater in Leipzig, where rivalry with his senior colleague Arthur Nikisch begins at once.

This is primarily over how the two should share conducting duties for the theater's new production of Wagner's Ring cycle.

Nikisch's illness, in January 1887, means that Mahler takes charge of the whole cycle, and scores a resounding public success.

This does not win him popularity with the orchestra, who resent his dictatorial manner and heavy rehearsal schedules.

Mahler had taken his first professional conducting job in a small wooden theater in the spa town of Bad Hall, south of Linz, in the summer of 1880.

The repertory was exclusively operetta; it was, in Carr's words, "a dismal little job", which Mahler accepted only after Julius Epstein told him he would soon work his way up.

In 1881, he had been engaged at the Landestheater in Laibach (now Ljubljana, in Slovenia), where the small but resourceful company was prepared to attempt more ambitious works.

Here, Mahler had conducted his first full-scale opera, Verdi's Il trovatore, one of more than fifty that he presented during his time in Laibach.

After completing his six-month engagement, Mahler had returned to Vienna and worked part-time as chorus-master at the Vienna Carltheater.

In January 1883, Mahler became conductor at a run-down theatre in Olmütz (now Olomouc).

Despite poor relations with the orchestra, Mahler brought five new operas to the theater, including Bizet's Carmen, and won over the press that had initially been hostile to him.

After a week's trial at the Royal Theater in the Hessian town of Kassel, Mahler had became the theater's "Musical and Choral Director" from August 1883.

The title concealed the reality that Mahler was subordinate to the theatrer's Kapellmeister, Wilhelm Treiber, who disliked him and set out to make his life miserable.

Despite the unpleasant atmosphere, Mahler had moments of success at Kassel.

He directed a performance of his favorite opera, Weber's Der Freischütz,and, on June 23, 1884, conducted his own incidental music to Joseph Victor von Scheffel's play Der Trompeter von Säkkingen ("The Trumpeter of Säkkingen"), the first professional public performance of a Mahler work.

An ardent, but ultimately unfulfilled, love affair with soprano Johanna Richter led Mahler to write a series of love poems which became the text of his song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen ("Songs of a Wayfarer").

In January 1884, the distinguished conductor Hans von Bülow brought the Meiningen Court Orchestra to Kassel and gave two concerts.

Hoping to escape from his job in the theater, Mahler unsuccessfully sought a post as Bülow's permanent assistant.

However, in the following year his efforts to find new employment resulted in a six-year contract with the prestigious Leipzig Opera, to begin in 1886.

Unwilling to remain in Kassel for another year, Mahler resigned in July 1885, and through good fortune had been offered a standby appointment as an assistant conductor at the Neues Deutsches Theater (New German Theatre) in Prague.

In Prague, the emergence of the Czech National Revival has increased the popularity and importance of the new Czech National Theater, and has led to a downturn in the Neues Deutsches Theater's fortunes.

Mahler's task is to help arrest this decline by offering high-quality productions of German opera.

He has early success presenting works by Mozart and Wagner, composers with whom he will be particularly associated for the rest of his career, but his individualistic and increasingly autocratic conducting style leads to friction, and a falling out with his more experienced fellow-conductor, Ludwig Slansky.