Karl Böhm

:Do not confuse with: Carl Bohm. Karl August Leopold Böhm (August 28, 1894 August 14, 1981) was an Austrian conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century.

Biography

Education

The son of a lawyer, Karl Böhm studied law and earned a doctorate on this subject before entering the music conservatory in his home town of Graz, Austria. (His father was originally German-speaking Bohemian from Egerland, while his mother was from Alsace.) He later enrolled at the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied under Eusebius Mandyczewski, a friend of Johannes Brahms.

Munich, Darmstadt, Hamburg

In 1917 Karl Böhm became a rehearsal assistant in his home town, in 1919 the assistant director of music, and in 1920 the senior director of music. On the recommendation of Karl Muck, Bruno Walter engaged him at Munich's Bavarian State Opera in 1921. In 1927 he was appointed as chief musical director in Darmstadt. From 1931 to 1934 he fulfilled the same function at the Hamburg opera company and was appointed professor.

Vienna, Dresden, Salzburg

In 1933 he conducted in Vienna for the first time, in "Tristan and Isolde" by Wagner. He succeeded Fritz Busch, who had gone into exile, as head of Dresden's Semper Opera in 1934, a position he held until 1942. This was an important period for him, in which he conducted first performances of works by Richard Strauss: Die schweigsame Frau (1935) and Daphne (1938), which is dedicated to him. He also conducted the first performances of "Romeo und Julia" (1940) and "Die Zauberinsel" (1942) by Heinrich Sutermeister, and Strauss's Horn Concerto No. 2 (1943).

In 1938 he took part in the Salzburg Festival for the first time, conducting "Don Giovanni," and thereafter he became a permanent guest. He secured a top post at the Vienna State Opera in 1943, eventually becoming music director. On the occasion of the 80th birthday of Richard Strauss, in 1944, he conducted the Salzburg Festival performance of "Ariadne auf Naxos."

After World War Two

After he had completed a two-year post-war denazification ban, Böhm led "Don Giovanni" at Milan's Teatro alla Scala (1948) and gave a guest performance in Paris with the Vienna State Opera company (1949). From 1950 to 1953 he directed the German season at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and he conducted the first Spanish performance of the opera "Wozzeck" by Alban Berg, translated into Spanish for the occasion. In 1953 he was responsible for the first performance of Gottfried von Einem's work "Der Prozess." From 1954 to 1956 he directed the Vienna State Opera at its reconstructed home. He additionally resumed ties post-war in Dresden, at the Staatskapelle.

Success in New York

In 1957 he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, conducting Don Giovanni, and quickly became one of the favorite conductors of the Rudolf Bing era, leading, all told, 262 performances, including the house premieres of Ariadne auf Naxos and Die Frau ohne Schatten, which was the first major success in the new house at Lincoln Center. Böhm led many other major productions in New York, such as Fidelio for the Beethoven bicentennial, Le nozze di Figaro, Tristan und Isolde (including the house debut performance of Birgit Nilsson in 1959), Parsifal, Lohengrin, Otello, Der Rosenkavalier, Salome, Wozzeck, Elektra and others.

Bayreuth and Wagner

Böhm made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival in 1962 with "Tristan and Isolde," which he conducted until 1970. In 1964 he led Wagner's "Mastersingers of Nuremberg" there, and from 1965 to 1967 the composer's Der Ring des Nibelungen cycle, which was the last production by Wieland Wagner. These appearances resulted in critically acclaimed recordings of the "Ring" and "Tristan." In 1965 Böhm conducted "Fidelio" in Tokyo. In 1971 he gave performances in Moscow and led Wagner's "Flying Dutchman" at Bayreuth.

Indian Summer in London

Late in life, he began a guest-conducting relationship with the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) in a 1973 appearance at the Salzburg Festival. Several recordings were made with the orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon. Böhm was given the title of LSO President, which he held until his death. During the 1970s, the conductor led performances at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.

Death, Family, Legacy

Böhm died in Salzburg. His son, actor Karlheinz Böhm, is known for his roles as Beethoven in the Walt Disney film The Magnificent Rebel, as the young Emperor Franz Joseph in the three Sissi movies, and for playing Jacob Grimm opposite Laurence Harvey's Wilhelm Grimm in the 1962 MGM-Cinerama spectacular The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm.

Perhaps Böhm's greatest contribution to music lay in bringing to life the operas of his close colleague Richard Strauss. Böhm led the premieres of Strauss's late works Die schweigsame Frau (1935) and Daphne (1938), of which he is the dedicatee, recorded all of the major operas (often making cuts to the scores), and regularly revived Strauss's operas with strong casts during his tenures in Vienna and Dresden, as well as at the Salzburg Festival.

Böhm was praised for his rhythmically robust interpretations of the operas and symphonies of Mozart, and in the 1960s he was entrusted with recording a full cycle of the symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic. Böhm's brisk and plain way with Wagner won adherents, as did his readings of the symphonies of Brahms, Bruckner and Schubert. His 1971 recorded cycle of Beethoven's symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic likewise drew high regard. On a less common front, Böhm championed and made recordings of Alban Berg's operas Wozzeck and Lulu before they gained a position in the repertory.

He received numerous honours, among them first Austrian Generalmusikdirektor in 1964. He was widely feted on his 80th birthday, ten years later; his colleague Herbert von Karajan presented him with a clock to mark that occasion. Karl Böhm's unyielding harshness and youthful spirit, his sensitivity, authority, and total commitment to the music characterized this conductor, who always receded behind the works he conducted. He owed his worldwide success to his diligent life style.

Nazi Taint

Although suspected by some of being an early sympathizer of the Nazi party, Böhm never became a member. According to British music journalist Norman Lebrecht, in November 1923 Böhm stopped a rehearsal in the Munich opera house in order, reportedly, to watch Adolf Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch. In 1930 he is said to have become angry when his wife was accused by Nazi brownshirts of being Jewish during the premiere of Arnold Schoenberg's opera Von heute auf morgen and to have stated that he would "tell Hitler about this". In 1939 he contributed to the Newspapers of the Comradeship of German Artists special congratulatory edition on the occasion of Hitler's 50th birthday. "The path of today's music in the sphere of symphonic works... has been marked and paved by the ideology of National Socialism..." On the other hand, Böhm's programming of modern works was disliked by the Nazis, and his collaborations with anti-Nazi directors and designers "could have been interpreted by enemies of the Nazi regime as a brave attempt to preserve the principle of artistic freedom", and Böhm, apparently preparing for eventual flight and exile, sent his son Karlheinz to Switzerland. In the end, according to historian Michael H. Kater, Böhm belongs in that group of artists of whom "we also find conflicting elements of resistance, accommodation, and service to the regime, so that in the end they cannot be definitively painted as either Nazis or non-Nazis."

References

External links

Category:1894 births Category:1981 deaths Category:Austrian conductors (music) Category:Opera directors Category:General Directors of the Vienna State Opera Category:Music directors of the Vienna State Opera Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Austrian expatriates in Germany Category:Austrian people of Bohemian German descent Category:People of Alsatian German descent Category:People from Graz Category:Commanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany