Carlos Kleiber

Carlos Kleiber (3 July 1930 – 13 July 2004) was a German conductor of Austrian-American extraction who also held Argentinian citizenship and naturalized at age 50 as an Austrian. Born in Berlin, he lived in Germany until age five and then again continuously from age 23, except that he kept a second home in Slovenia in his later years. He grew up in Buenos Aires but trained mostly in Germany, where he did the vast majority of his work. Kleiber remains widely regarded as one of the greatest conductors of the 20th century.[1]

Early life

Kleiber was born as Karl Ludwig Bonifacius Kleiber in Berlin, the son of the eminent Austrian conductor Erich Kleiber and American Ruth Goodrich, from Waterloo, Iowa.[2][3] In 1940, the Kleiber family emigrated to Buenos Aires and Karl was renamed Carlos. As a youth, he had an English governess and grew up in English boarding schools. He also composed, sang, and played piano and timpani. While his father noticed his son's musical talents, he nevertheless dissuaded Carlos from pursuing a musical career: "What a pity the boy is musically talented", wrote Erich to a friend.[4] Carlos first studied chemistry in Zurich, but soon decided to dedicate himself to music.

Early career

Carlos Kleiber was répétiteur at the Gärtnerplatztheater in Munich in 1951. He made his conducting debut with Millöcker's operetta Gasparone in Potsdam on Feb. 12, 1955. From 1958 to 1964 he was Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf and Duisburg, and from 1964 to 1966 held the same post at Zurich Opera. Between 1966 and 1973 he was Erst Kapellmeister in Stuttgart, his last salaried job with line responsibility.

Munich as home

In 1968 Kleiber began the longest and most fruitful professional relationship of his life, with the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. He lived in the Munich suburb of Grünwald, near the Bavaria Film studios. For ten years, until 1978, he held a "guest" conducting contract with the company; for the following ten years, until 1988, he worked without any fixed contract. He conducted Der Rosenkavalier, La traviata, Madama Butterfly and Otello (all in 1968, returning often to the Strauss and Verdi operas), Wozzeck (from 1970 to 1972), Die Fledermaus (from 1974) and La bohème (from 1978). He ten times conducted the company's New Year's Eve performances of Die Fledermaus, out of an astonishing total of 71 performances he led of this operetta with the company; he left at least four Munich recordings of it.

He also led numerous concerts with the company's Bavarian State Orchestra, both in the Nationaltheater and other venues in Munich and on tour around Bavaria and overseas; this was, in effect, his orchestra, one he long shared with GMD Wolfgang Sawallisch. Among the live recordings from this partnership are Beethoven's 4th, 6th and 7th Symphonies. Kleiber's last concert with the Bavarian State Orchestra took place in Ravenna, Italy, on June 19, 1997.

Freelance work

Kleiber greatly restricted his conducting appearances as his fame grew:

Edinburgh and London

He made his British debut in 1966 at the Edinburgh Festival with Wozzeck, a work whose world premiere his father had conducted in 1925. His repertoire at the Royal Opera House included Der Rosenkavalier, Elektra, La bohème and Otello.[5] He also conducted two concerts in 1981 with the London Symphony Orchestra, one in Milan and one in London, but the Royal Festival Hall concert was so badly reviewed that Kleiber swore never to conduct in London again, and he never did.

Bayreuth

Kleiber made a successful Bayreuth debut in 1974 conducting Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. He led this opera again in 1975 and, for three performances only, in 1976, but did no further work at the festival. Many of the musicians he worked with in the pit were Dresden-based, and they would later contribute to Kleiber's studio recording of Tristan.

Milan

The conductor was a regular guest at the Teatro alla Scala from 1976 to 1987, though he led only four different operas. He opened the company's season on the Feast of St Ambrose in 1976 with Otello starring Plácido Domingo, and in 1988 gave six performances of its La bohème in Japan.

Chicago and New York

Kleiber's American debut came in 1978 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra,[6] which he again conducted in 1983, his only U.S. orchestra appearances.[7][8] He worked at New York's Metropolitan Opera in 1988, 1989 and 1990; his debut was conducting La bohème with Luciano Pavarotti and Mirella Freni.[9] He returned in 1989 to conduct La traviata and in 1990 for Otello[10] and Der Rosenkavalier.[11]

Berlin and Vienna

The celebrated Berlin-born conductor did not conduct the Berlin Philharmonic until 1982, a debut that was well received. He returned to the orchestra in the late 1980s. In 1989, following Herbert von Karajan's resignation from the orchestra, Kleiber was offered, but famously declined, the opportunity to succeed Karajan as chief conductor.[12] Kleiber enjoyed fuller ties with the Vienna Philharmonic, partly through his occasional guest-conducting at the Vienna State Opera, where he led Tristan und Isolde in 1973, Der Rosenkavalier in 1974 and 1994, Carmen in 1978 and La bohème in 1985; the Bizet and the 1994 Strauss were filmed and released on DVD. He made acclaimed studio recordings of three Beethoven and Brahms symphonies in the 1970s with the Vienna orchestra and, again famously, conducted its New Year's Day concerts in 1989 and 1992.

Japan

Carlos Kleiber (ka-ru-ro-su ku-ra-i-baa) was and still is positively adored in Japan; the word worshipped would not be far off the mark. His many appearances there included Nagoya, Osaka, Yokohama and of course Tokyo, where he conducted the last opera performances of his life in October 1994. Most of his engagements came in the context of tours by the Munich, Milan or Vienna opera companies.

Last active years

Kleiber in 1993 gave only two concerts, a Vienna Philharmonic subscription program of Mozart's 33rd Symphony and Strauss's Ein Heldenleben. 1994 saw his last opera work, conducting Der Rosenkavalier in Vienna (3 performances) and Tokyo (6 performances, with a top price above ¥60,000). He did not perform again until April 1996, for a private concert with his beloved Bavarian State Orchestra in Ingolstadt, home of car firm Audi; part of his payment consisted of a new Audi made to his specifications, the rest amounted to DM 100,000. The Ingolstadt program — Beethoven's Coriolan Overture, Mozart's 33rd and Brahms's 4th — was repeated in Munich's Herkulessaal the following October, for a total of only two Kleiber concerts that year; it was televised and would turn out to be the conductor's farewell to the public of his adopted home town. In 1997, Kleiber repeated the program in Ljubljana and, ending his partnership with the Bavarian State Orchestra, in Ravenna; he gave no concerts in 1998. Kleiber's five last concerts were all — incongruously given his history — with the competing Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; they consisted of Beethoven's 4th and 7th Symphonies and took place in early 1999 in sunny Las Palmas, Santa Cruz, Valencia and, on two evenings, Cagliari.

Reclusiveness

Kleiber performances were meticulously rehearsed yet seemed spontaneous and inspired. In the opinion of many of his colleagues and audiences, he was an eccentric genius whom some placed among the greatest conductors of all time despite the paucity of his appearances.[4][13][14][15][16] Nevertheless, Kleiber kept out of the public eye. He gave only one known interview in his lifetime, in 1960,[17][18][19] and for years it was thought that he gave none at all.[8][20][21] After he stopped conducting in the Bavarian State Opera's Nationaltheater in 1988, his appearances became very infrequent.

Honors and awards

Death and burial

Kleiber died a week before his death became public knowledge. One late ailment was prostate cancer. He is buried in the Slovenian village of Konjšica, near Litija, with his wife Stanislava Brezovar, a dancer. She had died seven months earlier, in late 2003;[22] Riccardo Muti recounted in the documentary I Am Lost To the World a phone conversation he had with his conducting colleague only hours after her death, noting the couple's closeness and the intensity of Kleiber's loss. They had a son, Marko, and a daughter, Lillian.

Legacy

Posthumous evaluation

"His gifts—musical and dramatic insights, analytical abilities, technique, methods of explaining himself—make him the greatest conductor of our day. When I work with him, I feel that he knows why the composer wrote every note, treated every phrase, conceived of every bit of orchestral color in a particular way...If he were to become the permanent conductor of a major orchestra, he could turn it into the greatest ensemble in history."[23]

—Plácido Domingo about his friend and colleague Carlos Kleiber, 1983

Documentary tributes

Video performances

Kleiber's unique conducting style is preserved on video in a number of performances: Beethoven's 4th and 7th Symphonies from the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam;[28] Die Fledermaus from Munich; Der Rosenkavalier from Munich and later Vienna; Mozart's 36th Symphony and Brahms' 2nd Symphony from the Musikverein in Vienna; Beethoven's Coriolan Overture, Mozart's 33rd and Brahms' 4th Symphonies with the Bavarian State Orchestra in Munich; and Carmen from Vienna. He led the New Year's Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic in 1989 and 1992, and these are both preserved on video.

Audio recordings

Although Kleiber made only a few studio recordings, most are highly regarded. His versions of Beethoven's 5th and 7th Symphonies made in 1974 and 1976 with the Vienna Philharmonic are particularly distinguished, but so are his live recordings of the composer's 4th, 6th and 7th made in 1982 and 1983 with the Bavarian State Orchestra. Other notable recordings include Brahms' Symphony No. 4, from 1980, and Schubert's 3rd and 8th ("Unfinished") Symphonies, from 1978, all made under studio conditions with the Vienna Philharmonic. His recording of Dvořák's Piano Concerto with Sviatoslav Richter is acclaimed too; it was made for EMI in 1976 with the Bavarian State Orchestra (and not with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, as listed on EMI's Great Recordings CD cover). Kleiber's four studio opera recordings, all for Deutsche Grammophon, continue to receive high praise: Der Freischütz (from 1973), Die Fledermaus (1975) and La Traviata (1976). The fourth and last, Tristan und Isolde with the Staatskapelle Dresden, caused a quarrel because the conductor left the recording sessions, which began in 1980 and extended into 1981, before they were finished; given that a musically complete performance had been set down, however, the record company went ahead and released the opera, much to Kleiber's anger.

References

  1. ↑ "Carlos Kleiber voted greatest conductor of all time". BBC Worldwide Press Releases. BBC Music. 17 March 2011. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  2. 1 2 Barber, Charles (2011). Corresponding with Carlos: A Biography of Carlos Kleiber. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-8143-3. Retrieved 8 March 2015.
  3. ↑ Harvey Sachs (2004-07-25). "The Conductor Who Could Not Tolerate Error". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-10-14.
  4. 1 2 Schudel, Matt (20 July 2004) "Obituaries: Gifted, Eccentric Conductor Carlos Kleiber Dies at 74" Washington Post, Washington D.C. p. B06;
  5. ↑ "Performance Database Search Results". Royal Opera House Collections Online. Retrieved 2014-08-04.
  6. ↑ John Rockwell (2004-07-20). "Carlos Kleiber Is Dead at 74; Music's Perfectionist Recluse". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-10-14.
  7. ↑ Michael Walsh (1983-07-13). "Unvarnished Symphonies". Time. Retrieved 2007-10-14.
  8. 1 2 Nicholas Kenyon (1989-10-15). "Carlos Kleiber: Genius Wrapped In an Enigma". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-10-14.
  9. ↑ Donal Henehan (1988-01-24). "Pavarotti and Freni in La Boheme". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-10-14.
  10. ↑ Donal Henehan (1990-03-07). "Carlos Kleiber Leads Plácido Domingo In Verdi's Otello". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-10-14.
  11. ↑ Donal Henehan (1990-09-27). "Sweeping Rosenkavalier at the Met". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-10-14.
  12. ↑ Jacobs, Arthur (1990) "Kleiber, Carlos" The Penguin Dictionary of Musical Performers Viking, London
  13. ↑ "Kleiber, Carlos" Current Biography Yearbook 1991 edition, H.W. Wilson Co., New York, p.338
  14. ↑ Bernheimer, Martin (October 2004) "Obituaries: Carlos Kleiber" Opera News 69(4): p.85;
  15. ↑ Kakaviatos, Panos (20 July, 2004) "Carlos Kleiber, 74, widely admired conductor" Chicago Sun-Times
  16. ↑ Alan Blyth, obituary for Carlos Kleiber, The Guardian, 21 July 2004.
  17. ↑ Youtube Rare Carlos Kleiber Interview in 1960
  18. ↑ Interview of Carlos Kleiber on German Radio
  19. ↑ Frühe Ausnahme von der Regel – Das bislang einzige überlieferte Interview von Carlos Kleiber
  20. ↑ Tolansky, John. "Carlos Kleiber – Obituary (Gramophone, October 2004) by John Tolansky". Gramophone. Gramophone. Retrieved 10 April 2012.
  21. ↑ Martin Kettle, "A rare touch of musical magic". The Guardian, 1 January 1990.
  22. ↑ "Obituary section: Kleiber, Carlos" Current Biography Yearbook 2004 edition (New York: Wilson, 650)
  23. ↑ Domingo, Plácido (1983). My First Forty Years. New York: Knopf. pp. 142–3. ISBN 0-394-52329-6.
  24. ↑ "Se institucionalizó el día del Director de Orquesta". Tiempo de San Juan. 2014-01-12.
  25. ↑ "Radio Rai.it – Home". Retrieved 13 February 2016.
  26. ↑ Transcript of Who Was Carlos Kleiber?
  27. ↑ "NOW: Carlos in Korean / Carlos on DGG Documentary". Corresponding with Carlos. Retrieved 13 February 2016.
  28. ↑ Bernard Holland (1987-06-19). "Conducting for Cultists: Beethoven From Kleiber". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-10-14.
  29. ↑ http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2000/june00/elektra.htm
  30. ↑ Andrew Clements, "Brahms: Symphony No. 4". The Guardian, 17 March 2000.

Sources

External links

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