Orchestra pit footage has turned up of Herbert von Karajan conducting Tosca at the Salzburg East Festival in March 1989, four months before he died.
The camera is focused on the conductor.
The tenor you can hear is Luciano Pavarotti.
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Extraordinary indeed, and a feast for students of conducting.
He was between rehearsals for Un ballo in maschera when he died that July.
Herbert von Karajan had invited Sir Georg Solti to share his 1989 festival with him, in Bartók and Beethoven. So much for ancient rivalries. Solti of course took over the summer Ballo.
The Tosca cast was Josephine Barstow, Luciano Pavarotti and Alain Fondary.
Fiamma Izzo d’Amico, 23, had starred the previous year but wasn’t liked. People said Karajan had lost his ear for singers. I thought she was fine, just too young. Her career fizzled.
Whenever big artists cancel for minor infirmity, it’s worth recalling how Karajan fought back-pain to show up and deliver right to the end, a quality evident as he squidges into position in this video.
It’s always a thrill to hear the Berlin Phil in opera.
My first Fidelio and Trovatore came that way, with conductor as stage director. Next up: Madama Butterfly, although Petrenko won’t stage-direct.
All things considered, Karajan was the best conductor I have ever heard, and I have heard them all from 1974 onwards. Between opera, concerts and rehearsals, I went to Karajan performances 146 times. The only problem was that he trusted Michel Glotz
‘s ear for artists and recordings. There was a very big difference between his live and studio recordings. Go to the Saint-Laurent CDs from Canada and you will see the difference.
The Tosca is Josephine Barstow. Certainly an unusual bit of casting! Von Karajan was an incredible conductor of Puccini.
…and Wagner, and Bruckner, and Beethoven, and Brahms, and…and…and…..
The Tosca here is Anna Tomowa-Sintow .
Josephine Barstow was about to sing Amelia in Ballo a few months later. Sadly Karajan passed away during rehearsals, one week to opening night . Solti stepped in to conduct that run .
I was working on that last production and also there at the Easter Festival when Pavarotti returned to Salzburg for what was to be his last Tosca with Karajan .
A young Luciano. Wow.
And a conductor who knows the score and doesn’t over conduct. Wow.
„Luciano“ was 53 at the time, and had been singing lead roles since the 1960s.
not young at all, but still singing roles and mostly ambulatory
So impressive on so many levels, to begin with, at 81 and still have the entire score in his head, attentive to and anticipating every detail and nuance from the stage…
But for me the most revealing thing is that, when no one is “watching” as it were, when it’s only between the conductor and his pit orchestra in the dark as it were, how much an incredible and amazing technician he is, gone are all the mystifying myth-making just-for-the-camera-and-audience eye-closed hands-hovering-motionless-in-mid-air acts.
In its place, clear, precise, concise gestures that get amazing results. It is widely thought that Maazel’s stick technique is the best, well this video demonstrates Karajan’s is just as good, but it is all in the service of the music, whereas Maazel’s is quite self-indulgent.
(Of course it doesn’t hurt that the orchestra is his Berliners.)
And even here he still has that magical charismatic presence…..
If, from an earlier post, Angela Gheorghiu’s method is nobody gets an encore, Karajan’s method here is nobody gets a bravo, not even Pavarotti, lol, he just keeps the music and the orchestra going…
Who played principal clarinet here? Still Karl Leister? He was better than Pavarotti in E lucevan le stelle…
Directed by Tim Burton?
It’s just the pit camera relaying the conductor’s beat backstage.
Thank you for posting this. I was there. Pavarotti and Josephine Barstow were a great improvement from the previous year (Luis Lima and Izzo d’Amico).
I think you mean the Salzburg EASTER festival. There is no festival in the east of Salzburg
Absolutely amazing video. Thank you!
Eyes wide open!
I downloaded the YT video and saved it. I’ve also visited Herbie’s grave in Austria, a little inconspicuous plaque for a towering figure in music.
I’m wondering if any conductor so completely changed his style of conducting over the years as Karajan. Decades ago I purchased a DVD in Tokyo titled Geat Conductors of the Third Reich: Art in the Service of Evil. Clip #6 shows a visit of the Berlin Opera to Paris in 1940 accompanied by Winifred Wagner. Karajan is seen conducting part of the Meistersinger Overture. His arms are all over the place almost a la Solti, his long wavy black hair almost in sync with the music. So very different from the Karajan most of us grew up watching on the concert podium.
Solti wrote in his autobiography that he attended this performance and greeted Karajan backstage afterwards, who then invited him to conduct the Salzburg Easter Festival’s scheduled production of Die Frau Ohne Schatten in 1992.
Interesting (sometimes boring) HvK documentary at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdSiWyoYHL8.
Skip to 24m to see what a profound musician he was. Sponteneous footage for a change. And extraordinary energy in the Alpine Symphony, near end of documentary, given his physical condition then.