Carlos Kleiber; NY Sun Obit of Eccentric Austrian Conductor
Hyfler/Rosner
Critical Raptures
By STEPHEN MILLER Staff Reporter of the Sun
The Austrian conductor Carlos Kleiber, who died July 13
in Slovenia, was a thrilling enigma in classical music.
He was among the most lauded and sought-after conductors
of opera, and his recordings of Beethoven's Fifth and
Seventh symphonies are regarded by many critics as
benchmarks: "as if Homer had come back to recite 'The Iliad,
'" said Time magazine. He also turned down many more
engagements than he was offered, was notorious for walking
out on concerts and recording sessions for reasons that
seemed trifling, and refused for decades to accept a
permanent conducting post. He even, it was said, turned down
Herbert von Karajan's offer to succeed the master at the
podium of the Berlin Philharmonic.
Kleiber's repertoire was tiny compared with those of
other first-rank conductors, and it grew smaller over the
years as he pared it down to his favorites. In addition to
Beethoven's Fifth and Seventh symphonies, he would conduct
only his Fourth; he would conduct only a dozen operas - none
of Mozart's and only one of Wagner's, "Tristan und Isolde."
When Kleiber finally recorded "Tristan," in 1980, his record
company, Deutsche Grammophon, issued a statement explaining
that the record had been delayed (amid rumors of rows with
singers) because he "wanted to exploit the new 16-track
technique down to the last inaudible detail."
Kleiber discouraged publicity for his concerts and was
notorious for refusing to sign contracts. He often refused
to commit to a specific program in advance. Instead, he
would arrive and inform the orchestra what to play. It
helped that he insisted on extra rehearsals. He demanded 34
rehearsals for his first performance of Alban Berg's
"Wozzeck" in Munich. When Berg's widow heard the
performance, she was so pleased with it that she presented
Kleiber with Berg's coat and wedding ring.
When Kleiber finally made his New York debut, in 1988, it
did not hurt his reputation that the Metropolitan Opera's
management had been trying for a decade to lure him. Kleiber
led "La Boheme" to universal raves in the Franco Zeffirelli
staging, starring Luciano Pavarotti and Mirella Freni. The
next year, Kleiber returned to New York to conduct a new
Zeffirelli staging of "La Traviata." In 1990, he conducted
"Otello" and "Der Rosenkavalier" at the Met, winning the
favor of the sour critic Edward Said, who wrote,"It is
depressingly rare to hear opera conducting of such
intelligence and care."
Kleiber was born in 1930 in Berlin, where his father,
Erich Kleiber, was director of the Berlin State Opera (he
had directed the premier of "Wozzeck" in 1925). Erich
Kleiber, who was married to an American, was guest conductor
of the New York Philharmonic in the year of Carlos's birth.
In 1936, Erich Kleiber resigned from the Berlin State
Opera after Nazi officials banned the premiere of Paul
Hindemith's opera "Mathis der Maler."The family fled Germany
with only the 40 marks it was allowed to take out of the
country and went to live in Argentina, where Erich Kleiber
conducted operas at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires for
many years. In 1944, he replaced Bruno Walter for a year as
conductor at the Met.
There was a darker side to growing up amid such musical
sophistication, because Carlos's father discouraged him from
becoming a musician. Despite showing inclinations toward
composing before he was in his teens, his father directed
that Carlos study chemistry in Switzerland.
Eventually, Carlos insisted on studying music. Erich
Kleiber disparaged his son's ability repeatedly in public,
and the treatment seems to have given Carlos an inferiority
complex. Or at least that was one reason constantly
suggested by critics for Kleiber's limited output in his
mature years; Kleiber himself never gave interviews and
nobody really knew for sure.
Kleiber made his conducting debut at La Plata, Argentina,
in 1952, and then at Potsdam in 1954, where it is said he
performed under a pseudonym to avoid embarrassing his
father. His career seems to have gained momentum with the
death of his father, in 1956, the same year that he began
conducting opera at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in
Düsseldorf. He went on to fulltime positions in Zurich,
Stuttgart, and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.
After 1973, he accepted only guest assignments, spurning
a full-time appointment altogether. Said Karajan, "He tells
me,'I only conduct when I am hungry.' And it is true. He has
a deepfreeze. He fills it up, and cooks for himself, and
when it gets down to a certain level then he thinks, 'Now I
might do a concert.' He is like a wolf."
A wolf everyone wanted at their doorstep. His "Tristan
und Isolde" at the Vienna State Opera in 1973 and the
following year at the Bayreuth Festival garnered
international attention.
In 1974, he conducted Strauss's "Der Rosencavalier" in
London to powerful huzzahs; the engagement got off to an icy
start, though, when Kleiber was introduced to the orchestra
and was told that many of the players had worked for his
father when he conducted the same opera in 1950.
Kleiber was known for his intense preparation, including
mastery of returning to the autograph scores to divine the
composer's original intent. Placido Domingo, who performed
under Kleiber in "Carmen," "La Traviata," and "Otello,"
said, "In my experience there's nothing in musical life
better than a rehearsal with him. You can learn so much."
At rehearsals, Kleiber would make allusive and sometimes
humorous comments, to the patter of Charlie Chaplin's feet
or the rumble of subways,to explain to players how he wanted
a particular passage to sound. "Violins - please put some
butter on it," he once implored at Covent Gardens.He was
reputed to have walked out on rehearsals at which players
laughed at his picturesque imagery.
When he stood at the podium, Mr. Domingo told Britain's
Guardian in 1990, "He is just like a magician. He always has
a trump card up his sleeve. He never repeats. Other
conductors do everything the same way. But just watch the
total independence of Carlos's hands. With one hand he can
give the idea of a big long line beaten in four, while with
the other he is beating in twelve with total independence."
Some critics described Kleiber's music as "rhapsodic" and
even "bacchanalian," but others stressed his utter control.
"He moved through the symphony's complex structure as simply
as Billie Holiday sang 'My Old Flame," wrote a rhapsodic
Gregory Sandow for the Wall Street Journal in 1983.
"Hackneyed old 'Boheme' unfolded as if it had never been
heard before," said Thor Eckert Jr. in the Christian Science
Monitor in 1988.
Kleiber's final performance was at the 1999 Canary
Islands Music Festival, at Santa Cruz de Tenerife. He
conducted, for the first time, the Bavarian Radio Symphony
Orchestra in Beethoven's Fourth and Seventh symphonies.
"Yet, after five rehearsals (which were closed to the
public)," went the Associated Press dispatch," it sounded as
if he had led the orchestra all his life.
Carlos Kleiber
Born July 3, 1930, in Berlin; died July 13 in Slovenia;
he had a son and a daughter; his wife, Stanka, died last
December.