CARLOS KLEIBER

Considered in a recent referendum, voted by the hundred greatest conductors in the world, as the greatest conductor of all time, Carlos Kleiber is still a mystery nine years after his death. His whole life he denied himself, never gave interviews, never wrote about himself or his art in essays, articles, books. He even said that he did not want to leave any trace. During his career he conducted only a fist of titles: eleven operas and a handful of symphonies (never Mozart or Mahler). In Rome he performed just twice. What is it that still today makes him so important and unique, why does he still live in a legendary aura in the world of music? The play, in the form of a fantastic and imaginary conversation, finally gives voice to his myth, facing the most significant aspects of his personality: the maniacal perfectionism, the very conflicting relationship with his father Erich who was in his turn a great conductor but had not reached his son’s fame, the extreme sensitivity and fragility that led him to sensational flights and desertions, the absolutely inimitable dialogue with the orchestras (at the rehearsals he expressed himself in paradoxes and extra-musical metaphors). The text, along with the intertwining of music and videos, for the first time shows grandeur and abyss of an artist who profoundly marked the 1900s, becoming in the world of orchestra conducting the equivalent of a rock star, capable of transforming his performances into an almost mystical experience.

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