For Birgit Nilsson, he was the ideal of a maestro who carried his singers on his hands - with economical gestures, flexible tempos and few words. No conductor stood in the pit of the Vienna State Opera more often than he did.
Mr. Klobucar, you have conducted 1133 performances at the Vienna State Opera. You are considered the record holder. Has your loyalty paid off?
Not really (laughs). I canceled a lot of other things because of Vienna. I could have conducted much more Wagner at the Metropolitan Opera. Also "Cavalleria rusticana" - and that, moreover, in the most Italian opera in the world. Because only Italians sat in the Met at that time! Well, that might have been too risky for me anyway. By the way, the 1133 performances do not include the ballet evenings.
You were considered Birgit Nilsson's favorite conductor. How did that come about?
Because of an "Aida" at the Theater an der Wien. After that she asked me again and again. When she sang her first "Elektra" in Stockholm in 1964, the director suggested Gielen. She rejected him immediately. Then Richard Kraus. She had never heard of him. Suddenly I received a call in Ghent, where we were guesting with the Graz Opera. I came to Stockholm, Birgit Nilsson was quite unprepared. Then we rehearsed. With Kurt Bendix at the piano, who had come from Leo Blech in Berlin. Berit Lindholm sang the Chrysothemis.
Birgit Nilsson had an exceptionally carrying voice. Did that make the task easier for a conductor?
It doesn't make much difference. I'll tell you what makes a good singer-conductor: he has to pay more attention to the voices than to the orchestra. That is the whole secret. The critics even reproached me for that: too much voices, too little orchestra! But look around you today. Many colleagues conduct only the orchestra and pay little attention to the voices.
In addition, the orchestras get louder and louder and higher and higher, no matter what happens to the singers! In a certain way Birgit Nilsson would not have needed any consideration. But on the other hand she did. Because all singers must be carried by the orchestra - and never covered up.
Are such views a generational issue?
I think so. Symphonic repertoire is becoming increasingly important for opera orchestras. Conducting careers are no longer made from the opera pit. We are dealing with a clandestine decline of opera. The ones who suffer are the singers.
Since when has that been the case?
Since Karajan, probably. Of all people! Because Karajan was an excellent conductor of opera and singers. His concert version of "Carmen" from 1954: I came home and had the impression that the world was no longer standing still. All the tempi were suddenly different, much more extreme. Karajan was the first to radically question traditional standards and redefine them for himself. He was a true innovator.
Was Karajan at the same time less flexible because of these tempi?
Compared to older conductors, yes. Nevertheless, Karajan is considered an excellent conductor of singers. But, I would say, only in comparison with later generations.
Did you also directly experience the orchestras getting louder?
Of course. Eight horns in the Jägerchor in "Freischütz" under Karl Böhm! Very beautiful sound, no question.
Would you also have gotten eight horns if you had asked for them?
Of course not! But I didn't want it either. By the way, one has to admit: Felix von Weingartner already enforced the doubling of horns. I have also adhered to it to some extent. But only in the symphonic repertoire, not in opera.
In your native city of Zagreb, you were a student of Lovro von Matacic.
I started with him in 1941. I was allowed to conduct the "Domine Jesu" during the Mozart "Requiem". Sena Jurinac was one of the soloists. Before that we sang the "Ave verum". That was my debut. The first time I conducted an entire work were dress rehearsals for "Rheingold" and "Parsifal", with Jurinac as the First Flower Girl. That was in 1943. In Zagreb, we had a cover over the orchestra pit for Wagner performances - based on the Bayreuth model. You could take it off. Then I was given a Singspiel and "Das Land des Lächelns". Afterwards, the orchestra director came up to me and said, "Young man, that was good." It is the only praise I got at that time.
What was the ideal sound that was cultivated there?
A soft orchestral sound. All the important musicians had studied in Vienna. Except Matacic himself. With him, by the way, the markings were a bit confused at times. But the flair was right. One looked up to Clemens Krauss. Also to Josef Krips. He later went through "Così fan tutte" bar by bar with us in Salzburg. In this way, traditions and ways of playing were passed on in a concrete way. I first conducted in Rijeka (Fiume) in 1951: "Butterfly", "Tosca" and the "Rape of Lucretia". It was already clear then that I wanted to leave.
When you came to Vienna in 1953, the famous Mozart ensemble with Schwarzkopf, Seefried, Kunz and others was in full bloom.
Yes, and that is the reason why I never conducted "Così fan tutte". I was afraid of it. That was simply Böhm and Krips' piece. And once Rudolf Kempe came in, it really wasn't the same anymore.
In those days, were people in seventh heaven musically?
Certainly. There is nothing wrong with that. However, the Mozart ensemble did not belong to the Vienna State Opera, but to the Theater an der Wien. It was rather a phenomenon of the transitional period. The acoustics there were much more suitable for Mozart. When the big house reopened in 1955, it meant a fundamental reorientation and a period of acclimatization, especially for the Mozart repertoire. One did not know how deep the orchestra had to sit. Some of it remained in the Theater an der Wien after the move. Karajan's "Magic Flute," for example.
What do you think of the legendary Viennese sloppiness?
It existed. And how! Back then, sloppiness meant that nothing was precise. Nothing at all. But sometimes something good came out of it. The lack of rehearsals at the Vienna State Opera favored sloppiness on the one hand - and on the other hand it was absorbed.
Can you give an example?
"Rosenkavalier" - an exhausting, really heavy piece for the orchestra. Krips conducted. During the waltz in the second act, practically everything fell apart completely. Krips yelled, "Stop it! Stop it!" The orchestra kept playing. And eventually, miraculously, everyone was together again. It happened to me once, too: one was dragging, the other hurrying ahead. Suddenly the timpanist gave a hard accent - and everything was together again. Afterwards, I asked him, "What was that about?!" "Yes, I wasn't quite sure either," he answered me. "That's when I went 'boom.'"
What is your basic attitude to rehearsals?
I was actually brought up in such a way that rehearsals are basically not necessary. And I have to say that I have sometimes experienced rehearsed performances that could have been done without rehearsals.
You were considered a "great silent". Don't conductors have to talk a lot?
That was Wolfgang Wagner, who said about me that I was a great silent. And he added, "He's right." Orchestras in general don't like it when the conductor talks a lot. In Japan, I was told on the way from the airport, "Please don't explain too much!"
Did conductors of earlier generations speak less?
Yes. When Hans Knappertsbusch spoke, it was mainly jokes that came out. Salacious ones, of course. In conducting, the less you speak, the better. In my case, rehearsals at the Vienna State Opera were rushed anyway, there was often not even enough time to play through the work, let alone talk much about it. What was the point? In Vienna, according to the rotation principle, other musicians sat in rehearsals than in the pit in the evening.
Where did you find better rehearsal conditions than in Vienna?
In Graz and in Stockholm. Also in Nice, of course. I had to travel in order to be able to rehearse.
So there was a glaring rehearsal deficit at the Vienna State Opera?
Absolutely. This has only changed - within certain limits - within the last 20 years. But by then I was no longer there.
Conductors with such a strong commitment to a major house hardly exist today. How do you rate that?
Hans Swarowsky was already upset at the time that I stayed in Graz for a whole eleven years. Probably because he wanted to accommodate other students there. The problem is that you can't work equally concentrated in all places at the same time. In this respect, I don't consider what is currently happening to be particularly good.
You have conducted a total of 115 works. It follows that you have often conducted outside Vienna as well.
Especially in Graz. For example, the "Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh," which I had already conducted in Barcelona. And the first staged performance of "Karl V." by Ernst Krenek. This was later deliberately suppressed, when the work was to be given a grand premiere in Vienna and Bregenz. The latter, by the way, rightfully so, for it is a great work. Clemens Krauss had commissioned it. I conducted the first Austrian production.
What was Clemens Krauss like?
A conductor who taught not to do too much. Now, when you make movements that are too small, the musicians always like to say, "We don't see anything!" I would almost like to say: you shouldn't see anything either. The misfortune started with the big beating. The great conductors of the time all "beat small," i.e., favored inconspicuous, minimal gestures. Richard Strauss, for example, also Krauss and Böhm. All of them.
Furtwängler, with his long arms, tended to make big movements.
Not really. I experienced Furtwängler at rehearsals for Bruckner's Eighth. I was hidden away. I couldn't get a wink of sleep the following nights, it was so exciting. But Furtwängler's movements were by no means as big as they are today. Moreover, they were slightly inaccurate. Also Krips in "Titus": that was exciting without much physical power.
Were there any works that you rejected?
Not really. I even conducted things that were terrible. Smetana's "Dalibor" was such a case, because they didn't realize that a choir belonged to it. And "Simon Boccanegra!" In order to make a stage conversion, they had to repeat certain parts of the music, because otherwise it wouldn't have been enough. Terrible. I did it anyway. You have to stand by what you said yes to.
How did the performance of "Walküre" at the Met come about, which has now been released for the first time by Sony?
We had a great success in Graz with "Christophe Colombe," the opera by Darius Milhaud. The composer was sitting in the box. Then my wife went to Rudolf Bing, the head of the Metropolitan Opera, to offer it to him. But Bing was not interested, because he assumed that he would not be able to fill his house. Then suddenly a call came from him in New York. We thought he had changed his mind. But Bing said, "Karajan has just cancelled because of an operation." At that time, Karajan's back problems had just begun. "You have to come. Besides, you're the only one who can conduct in the dark!"
An allusion to Karajan's notoriously dark lighting?
Yes, it was his production, after all. Birgit Nilsson had already been given a helmet with a miner's lamp so that she could find her way around the stage. So I went to New York. They even gave me a rehearsal. It was a good job.
Do you see yourself more as a kapellmeister or as a conductor?
When Karajan became best man to the stage designer Günther Schneider-Siemssen, he wrote: "Profession: Kapellmeister. I would do the same.
Is the Vienna State Opera still your house today? Or has it become something completely different?
Quite different. Even Franz Welser-Möst admits in his book that there are no longer any regular conductors like Heinrich Hollreiser or myself. Nevertheless, the identity of the house is quite well secured in Vienna, namely by having this wonderful orchestra. If one didn't have it, one would be lost.
Do you still go to the opera several times a week?
I even pay. The last good performance I saw was "Anna Bolena" with Anna Netrebko. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I get a tax ticket or a director's ticket. Or I have to go to a standing room. Then it's a little cheaper.