Carlos Kleiber - Personal Hero
The Guardian:
One of the most exciting, yet eccentric, conductors of the last 50 years, Carlos Kleiber, who has died aged 74, led performances of symphonic music and opera that will never be forgotten by those who heard them. Happily, he also caught much of the vitality of his live readings in the recording studio. He was one interpreter for whose conducting the epithet “unique” was appropriate.
At the same time, he was an enfant terrible of the musical world. Primarily a recluse, he could only be persuaded into the public arena, at least during the last 20 years, by the combination of a momentous event, long rehearsal times and a huge fee. He took 34 rehearsals for his first performance of Berg’s Wozzeck in Munich, and 17 for a Covent Garden La Bohème. That other great German conductor Herbert von Karajan once commented: “He only conducts when the fridge is empty.”
Tess Crebbin:
He could be hard to handle, cancelling a concert because his favorite cellist was not in the orchestra, but he could also be hilariously funny: in 1986, he conducted the Fledermaus at the Munich opera, dressed up as Sergiu Celibidache. In 1996, he took his orchestra to Ingolstadt for a performance and, as payment, asked for the most expensive model of a brand-new Audi: performance in exchange for car. Ingolstadt, of course, is Audi’s world headquarters.
