Don Carlo Viena 1979

[halcover1]

I continue to explain my personal experiences on Karajan life performances I attended. The coming back from Karajan to Viena
since 1977 was something special. I had the chance to have two tickets for the performance on 6th may. I was really outstanding
why the public welcomed him, and the performance itself, even
considering the size of the stage compared with the Salzburg ones. I assume you have seen the Sony DVD which shows the
magnificent performance from Salzburg. Well, now imagine Freni instead of Izzo D'Amico and Raimondi instead of Furlanetto, Carreras and Baltsa amaizing it was really great.
Anecdote, when I was looking for the cashier for some money change, I was approached with people offering me to buy my tickets by a price who had covered my cost fligths (2) from Barcelona and the full board for the 4 days we spent there with my wife. We attended the performance of course. Memorable.
halcover1

[lee]

Hi Halcover

Of course, I am really jealous yet pleased for your good fortune for seeing Karajan live in the opera house - in 1979 he was arguably at or at least very near the peak of his powers. The later DVD transmission is fine, but has not created the same critical acclaim as the mid to late 70's performances, largely because of the change in the casts, as you note yourself. I'm not surprised that you were offered such a large sum of money for your ticket - on this occasion, they obviously had as much money as sense !

Was this your finest experience in the opera house ?

Best regards, Lee

[halcover1]

Hi Lee: Sorry to make you jalouse. Really this Don Carlo was a great experience, but I have to say that, probably La Boheme and
Meistersinger at the Ester Festival 1975, were thw most great experiences ever.
I had the opportunity to see Tosca twice, Easter 1988 and 1989,
realy not very impressive, only Pavarotti in 1989 was something
special, but the stage production and the cats were out of whta
you expect. I'll come in the next days to largely comment, those two Ester Festivals.

Regards.

Halcover1

[philharmonie]

Hi members,

on the side of a Viennese music house is the performance of 06 May 1979 availabel. Curiously, it is nothing about it on the side of the manufacturer Orfeo Int.

www.gramola.at/en/shop/produkte/oper/orfeo/raimondi,carreras,freni,karajan/giuseppe+verdi/109979/

Regards

Tilo

[charlesb]

Hi Tilo,

Thank you for this.

Amazon are currently listing it as unavailable and www.hmv.co.jp say it is released on 20th January, so it is good to know that at least one online shop has it already.

[Deleted]

Happy 2014, everyone.

Will listen soon to the 1975 Salzburg Don Carlo with Ludwig (the performance before she was replaced by Eva Randova)/Freni/Domingo/Cappuccilli/Ghiaurov/Van Dam. (from Opera Depot)

Don't know how Ludwig "fell foul", as Osborne claims.

Noticed a grimace from Karajan in the DVD version.

Planning on going to a Verdi Requiem concert with Furlanetto in a couple of months.

[john]

I remember Ludwig saying on one of the Karajan DVDs that he dropped her after missing a note, this may have been after the 1975 Carlo which in my opinion she was miscast, however she did appear in the 1982 Fallstaff so I would imagine Karajan did his usual thing of relegating singers who upset him to the subs bench only to bring them back later, similar to Kollo and later on Baltsa.

By the way tjh212 what DVD are you refering to regarding the Karajan grimace?

John

[Deleted]

Hello, John,

I was referring to the 1986 Salzburg video, about 2 seconds into Act III part 2. It appears it didn't start right for him.

[lee]

The 1979 Don Carlo has been released on CD now - I note that Classics Today (normally somewhat anti-Karajan) gave a rave review on it, but permit me to share my own review that I posted on Amazon UK for your convenience:

In June 1964, after a triumphant performance of Richard Strauss' Die Frau ohne Schatten, Karajan resigned his directorship of the Vienna State Opera. For a country which regarded its capital's principle opera house as something akin to a national treasure, Austria was aghast at letting top talent walk away due to mere political wrangles. For Karajan though it was probably a calculated risk; he was still able to conduct the Vienna PO in opera at the Salzburg Summer Festival and so with occasional visits to Milan's La Scala, as well as the inauguration of his Easter Festival a couple of years in the future where he conducted his own Berlin PO in opera, it wasn't as if he was walking away from the genre in totality. However, it may go some way to explaining how it took until 1977 for him to return to the State Opera, where over the course of little over a week in June, astonishingly he conducted in the evening productions of La Boheme with Carreras and Freni, Trovatore with Pavarotti and Leontyne Price and Le Nozze di Figaro with Cotrubas, von Stade, van Dam and Tom Krause; during the day he taped the now legendary recording of Salomé with Hildegard Behrens. Blimey !! The following year, he returned to do the same, this time with the Trovatore broadcast on live television, but only after its Manrico, Franco Bonisolli, had stormed out of the production (throwing his sword into the orchestral pit for good measure), to be then replaced by a mere Placido Domingo (see: Verdi: Il Trovatore (Live Recording From The Vienna State Opera 1978) [DVD] [2011] ). In 1979 and 1980, he conducted one production during his annual stay in Vienna, Don Carlo; the performance of the 6th May 1979 preserved on this recording.

Don Carlo was clearly one of Karajan's most favourite Verdi operas, although it only appeared comparatively late in his performance schedule, a sole run of performances at the Salzburg Summer Festival in 1958 (a live recording exists on DG)until 1975 when (with much the same cast as on this recording) it reappeared at the Summer Festival and eventually the Easter Festival in 1979, which was based upon the studio recording made by EMI. That recording has always been slightly controversial; not so the cast, which by any standard is quite jaw-dropping, nor so much for the conducting, which abounds with insights. Rather, the orchestra is balanced a little too close, at the expense of the singers - and when we are talking about the Berlin PO in imperious form, they are a quite loud. Similarly, Karajan, both conductor as well as opera producer, preferred the Four Act Milan version of the score, more compact and dramatic maybe than today's more common Five Acter, but shorn of the Fontainebleau scene is always going to provoke scowls from people in this must-play-every-note-and-repeat age.

In that respect, this new release from Orfeo of a performance made less than a year after the recording with much the same cast, is very similar in design to the EMI recording. There are a couple of significant differences though, not least since it features the Vienna rather than Berlin Philharmonic in the pit, more elegant and less intrusive than their more testosterone-fuelled brethren from across the border, a plus for some, maybe a negative for others who revelled in the Berlin orchestra's insouciant grandeur. There is also a significant change in the casting; Ruggero Raimondi, who was the Grand Inquisitor in the recording to Nicolai Ghiaurov's King Philip, is now the King with the young Matti Salminen's black and evil tones singing the role of the Inquisitor; their confrontation in the King's study is well worth the entrance fee ! As for the remainder of the cast, Carreras, Freni, Cappuccilli and Baltsa reprise their roles of Carlo, Elisabetta, Posa and Eboli respectively, with Edita Gruberova adding a touch of luxury casting as the voice from heaven; such a line-up is hard to comprehend today's more parsimonious times and indeed the audience seem suitably aware that they are privileged to be witnessing a great night in the opera house.

However, a great night at the opera may not always translate to a great night of listening on the CD player. The radio engineers clearly are a little ring rusty at the opening, the chorus of monks sounding a little backward in the sound picture and Luigi Roni monk's sonorous incantations occasionally masked by the orchestra, as is Don Carlo's opening words, they both being too far back on the stage for the microphones to pick up properly. A similar problem persists with the chorus in the Auto de fe scene, which lacks a certain impact as a consequence. Things improve however, for the second scene, Baltsa dazzling in her veil song, bringing the house down and Freni being the most wonderful Queen. That said, the problem is they are all up against themselves in the EMI recording and whilst maybe I should be applauding that the excellence evidenced there is replicated on the stage, there is little that will surprise listeners familiar with that recording, save the more discreet contribution of the Vienna PO and the Raimondi/Salminen confrontation mentioned already. Indeed, one of the glories of the EMI recording, José van Dam's haunted Monk/Charles V cannot be reproduced by Roni, for all of his excellence. Add the backwardly balanced chorus and you can, fair reader, understand a slight sense of frustration on my part.

That said, it's still five Stars for the performance, minus one for the engineers. Overall, if I were curious with Karajan's way with the score, I would suggest the EMI recording would be the first port of call; this live performance being ideal for those who dislike the forward balance of the orchestra on that and want to hear this particular cast; you won't be disappointed with either, but possibly don't need both. Instead for those looking for additional thrills and spills of a live Karajan Don Carlo, the clean (and better balanced) mono sound of the 1958 performance mentioned above with Siepi, Bastianini, Jurinac and Simoniato is more complimentary to the EMI set than this one is. Either way, all three sets offer casts, orchestral playing and conducting that only happens on very rare occasions and we are indeed lucky to have them all.


I hope you find this of interest and use, and naturally if you have any comments I'd be most interested to read them as well !

lee