Carlos Kleiber

 

I had the great good fortune to hear and see him conduct 'Elektra', 'Boheme' and 'Otello' at Covent Garden. In fact, being 'in the business' (an agent) I provided Jeffrey Lawton for that Otello performance which otherwise would not have taken place, Domingo having cancelled at the last minute. 

All the arrangements for Jeffrey Lawton were made with the artistic admin department so I still to this day have no idea how it played with C.K. I read somewhere he said he didn't want to lose the fee for this performance but maybe he was joking. Jeffrey Lawton's voice was not very pretty and he was a big lad but he had sung the role in Peter Stein's fantastic production for Welsh National Opera many times so knew his way around it and sang and acted it very well. He told me C.K. told him just to do what he normally did and he would follow him. That's what happened and it was a great performance - certainly the highpoint of Jeff's life as a singer. You probably know that he was an amateur singer who Brian McMaster plucked out of obscurity and had learn 'Siegfried' over a year for the WNO Ring.

I was even introduced to Carlos Kleiber by Helga Schmidt in her office where I had found myself on some business (I no longer remember what). She told him I was an agent and he made a gesture as if he was checking his wallet was still in his pocket with a feigned expression of concern. By chance I had a large bunch of banknotes in my pocket as I was on my way to pay one of my artists (you'll remember this was all done by by cash in those days) so I was able to produce it and say that it was OK, I had enough money for the moment. I think (hope) he was amused.

I also attended his Festival Hall concert with the LSO. My colleague Howard Hartog said 'Best concert since the war' and I agreed with him as far as I could, my concert-going only having started in 1957. Some of the critics found it otherwise which taught me that some (many?) people wouldn't recognise genius if it jumped up and bit them on the nose.

 

I think the reason some critics were negative about the LSO RFH concert was because Deutsche Grammofon did some crass advertising with if I remember correctly some hoardings actually on stage. Hartog's comment was all the more potent when you think he represented both Boulez and Solti when he made it. My abiding memory was of Kleiber actually taking off - launching himself at least 3 ft into the air in the stretta at the end of the 1st movement. I remember thinking that doing so was surely a physical impossibility but there it was. Interesting that he doesn't do that in the film from the Concertgebouw.