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Carlos Kleiber (3 July 1930 – 13 July 2004) was a German-born Austrian conductor who is widely regarded as being among the greatest conductors of the 20th century.
Kleiber was born as Karl Ludwig Bonifacius Kleiber in Berlin in 1930, the son of the eminent Austrian conductor Erich Kleiber and American Ruth Goodrich, from Waterloo, Iowa.[2][3] In 1935, 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.
Carlos first studied chemistry in Zurich, but soon decided to dedicate himself to music. He was repetiteur at the Gärtnerplatz Theatre in Munich in 1952, and made his conducting debut with the operetta Gasparone at Potsdam theatre in 1954. From 1958 to 1964 he was Kapellmeister at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf and Duisburg, and then at the Opera in Zurich from 1964 to 1966. Between 1966 and 1973 he was first Kapellmeister in Stuttgart, his last permanent post. During the following years, he often conducted at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.
During his freelance career, Kleiber restricted his conducting appearances to a select number of occasions. He made his British debut in 1966 with a performance at the Edinburgh Festival of Alban Berg's opera Wozzeck, a work whose premiere his father had conducted in 1925. Kleiber's repertoire at the Royal Opera House included Der Rosenkavalier, Elektra, La bohème and Otello.[5] He made his Bayreuth debut in 1974 conducting Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.
His American debut came in 1978 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra,[6] where he again conducted in 1983, his only US orchestra appearances.[7][8] His New York Metropolitan Opera debut was in 1988, conducting Giacomo Puccini's La bohème with Luciano Pavarotti and Mirella Freni.[9] In 1989, following Herbert von Karajan's resignation from the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Kleiber was offered, and declined, the opportunity to succeed him as music director.[10] Kleiber returned to the Met in 1989 to conduct La traviata, and in 1990 for Otello and Der Rosenkavalier.
Kleiber kept out of the public eye, and apparently gave an interview only once in his lifetime, contrary to reports that he never gave one at all.[8][16][17] After he resigned from the Bavarian State Opera, his appearances became less frequent and he made only a few recordings. Most of these are highly regarded; his versions of Ludwig van Beethoven's fifth and seventh symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and of Beethoven's Symphonies Nos. 4, 6 and 7 with the Bavarian State Orchestra are particularly distinguished. Other notable recordings include Johannes Brahms' Symphony No. 4 and Franz Schubert's third and eighth ("Unfinished") symphonies, also with the Vienna Philharmonic, recordings of Dvořák's Concerto for piano and orchestra with Sviatoslav Richter, Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz, Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus and Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata. His last studio recording was Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde with the Staatskapelle Dresden. Recording sessions began in 1980 but Kleiber left before they were completed. However, as a musically complete performance had been set down, Deutsche Grammophon went ahead and released it, much to Kleiber's anger.
Kleiber retired from concert life in the early 1990s, occasionally reappearing for private or benefit concerts. For one such event in Ingolstadt, part of his payment consisted of a new Audi made to his specifications. His performances were meticulously rehearsed, but often 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.
He was buried in the Slovenian village of Konjšica near Litija in 2004 together with his wife Stanislava Brezovar, a ballet dancer, who had died seven months earlier. They had two children, a son Marko and a daughter Lillian.
Kleiber's unique conducting style is preserved on video in a number of performances: Beethoven's Symphony No. 4 and Symphony No. 7 from the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam,[23] Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus from Munich, Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier from both Munich and Vienna, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 36th symphony and Brahms' second symphony from the Musikverein in Vienna ; Beethoven's Coriolan Overture, Mozart's 33rd and Brahms' fourth symphonies from Munich and Bizet's Carmen again from Vienna. He led the New Year's Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic in 1989 and 1992, and these are both preserved on video.
In 2008 Rai Radio 3 (Italian National Radio channel 3), inside its evening program Radio3Suite, broadcast a 10-episode program dedicated to Kleiber's legacy: Il Sorriso della Musica: un Ritratto di Carlos Kleiber ("The Smile Of Music: A Portrait Of Carlos Kleiber"), organized and hosted by Andrea Ottonello, with participation by Claudio Abbado, Mirella Freni, Maurizio Pollini, and above all Carlos Kleiber's sister, Veronica. In his interview, Abbado termed Kleiber "one of the greatest, if not the greatest, conductors of the 20th century" ("Carlos è stato uno dei più grandi, se non il più grande, direttore del Novecento.")
On 26 September 2009, BBC Radio 3 transmitted a documentary, Who Was Carlos Kleiber?. Produced by Paul Frankl and presented by Ivan Hewett with research by Ruth Thomson, this feature was based on interviews with four who knew Kleiber well: tenor and conductor Plácido Domingo, music administrator and intendant Sir Peter Jonas, music journalist and critic Christine Lemke-Matvey and conductor–pianist Charles Barber.
Beginning in July 2014, upon the tenth anniversary of his death, a syndicate of public broadcasters in Canada, Great Britain and the United States aired a two-hour documentary, Carlos Kleiber: A Conductor Unlike Any Other, about Kleiber as remembered by his colleagues. Producer Jon Tolansky, who himself played for Kleiber at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, interviewed singers Ileana Cotrubas, Thomas Hampson, Dame Felicity Lott, the late Dame Margaret Price and Jonathan Summers, members of the Chicago Symphony, Royal Opera House, London Symphony and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras, conductor and Kleiber friend Charles Barber, administrators Sir Peter Jonas and Sir John Tooley, and recording executive Costa Pilavachi. This audio essay incorporated numerous excerpts from Kleiber's most important recordings, including Beethoven's fifth and seventh symphonies, Verdi's La Traviata, Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier, and Weber's Der Freischütz.
| 1930 |
July 3, 1930
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Berlin, Germany
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| 2004 |
July 13, 2004
Age 74
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Konjšica, Litija, Slovenia
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| ???? | |||
| ???? |
(near Stanka), Konjšica, Litija, Slovenia
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