Berislav Klobučar

Berislav Klobučar (born August 28, 1924 in Zagreb , Yugoslavia ; † June 13, 2014 in Vienna , Austria ) was a Yugoslav and Croatian conductor who was best known for his work at the Vienna State Opera and at the Bayreuth Festival .

Life

Vienna Central Cemetery - honorary grave of Berislav Klobučar

Berislav Klobučar studied at the Music Academy in Zagreb and under the conductors Lovro von Matačić (1899–1985) and Clemens Krauss (1893–1954). From 1943 to 1951 he was a permanent conductor at the Croatian National Theater in Zagreb . In 1953 he moved to the Vienna State Opera. In the course of his more than 60 years conducting career, he was music director at the opera houses of Graz (1960–1971), Stockholm (1972–81) and the Orchester Philharmonique de Nice (1981–1989). In 1968 he conducted the Wagner operas The Flying Dutchman and The Valkyrie at the New York Metropolitan Opera . The recording of the Walküre there from February 24, 1968 was released on CD.

As the resident conductor of the Vienna State Opera, Berislav Klobučar was on the podium in 1133 performances of 53 different operas in 40 years. In total, his repertoire comprised 100 different musical works. Because of his modesty, experts consider his work at the Vienna Opera to be underestimated in retrospect. The singer Birgit Nilsson described him in her 1995 memoir as a “wonderful singer conductor with an enormous repertoire and solid ability” and at the same time complained that he was never allowed to conduct a new production in Vienna. Until 1993 he conducted at the State Opera, the last being Turandot .

A number of performances with Berislav Klobučar have been released on record or CD.

Klobučar was buried at the Vienna Central Cemetery in the Ehrenhain (group 40, number 191).

Bayreuth Festival

Berislav Klobučar conducted the following performances from 1964 to 1969:

• 1964
  • The Ring of the Nibelung (2 performances: July 22, 23, 24 and 26 and August 7, 18, 19 and 21)
• 1967
  • Tannhäuser (6 performances: July 29, August 1, 4, 7, 17, 20)
  • Lohengrin (only August 24th, otherwise Rudolf Kempe )
• 1968
  • The Mastersingers of Nuremberg (6 performances: 9th, 11th, 14th, 22nd, 25th, 28th August; before that Karl Böhm )
  • Tristan und Isolde (a performance for the sick Karl Böhm: 23 August)
• 1969
  • The Mastersingers of Nuremberg (7 performances: July 27, August 4, 7, 9, 17, 20, 24, 28)

Web links

• Works by and about Berislav Klobučar in the catalog of the German National Library
• Berislav Klobučar in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Conductor Klobucar died at the age of 89
2. ↑ Short biography on croatianhistory.net (engl.)
3. ^ Entry in the German National Library
4. ↑ Quoted in: Report on oe1.orf.at from August 25, 2009
5. ↑ State opera conductor Berislav Klobucar died , in: Standard.at, June 13, 2014 (accessed June 14, 2014).
6. ↑ According to the performance database of the Bayreuth Festival