Karl Löbl

This article is about an Austrian journalist. For the Austrian composer see Karl Maria Löbl .

Karl Löbl (born May 24, 1930 in Vienna ; † January 27, 2014 there ) was an Austrian music critic and cultural journalist .

Life

Löbl started working for the daily newspaper Weltpresse, which was still published by the British occupying forces in 1950 . From 1952 he designed radio programs, first at the American-run station Rot-Weiß-Rot , then at RAVAG . From 1954 he was cultural director for daily newspapers for 26 years: Bild-Telegraf , Express , most recently Kurier , there also editor-in-chief from 1975 to 1979.

Löbl gained a certain reputation early on, when he played a key role in changing a state opera director in 1956 . The then twenty-five-year-old interviewed the conductor Karl Böhm , who had been Vienna State Opera Director again since 1954, when he had returned to Austria from a guest performance in America, and elicited the statement from him that he was not thinking of sacrificing his international career to the Vienna State Opera - which was immediate led to a change of director.

In 1980 Löbl became head of the culture department at Austrian Television (ORF), and from 1993 also became head of TV music. From 1986 to 1998 he offered a critical review of the theater event of the evening from the auditorium with the current TV night review. After the premiere, immediately after the performance was over.

From 1968 Löbl designed and moderated the Sunday radio broadcast Do you love classical music? which ran for 28 years. In a cabaret carnival show on ORF, Löbl (together with Kammersänger Heinz Holecek ) presented Semper Piano culture, an invented nonsense ( fake ) as an innovation in the field of vocal technique. Some people actually believed in the existence of this fake and its developer, the Italian-American singing teacher Allegra Tacet .

After his retirement as "Head of Culture" of television, Löbl moderated the classic meeting point at ORF radio station Austria 1 until 2003 and then (until 2006) took over the design and moderation of the matinees before the premiere of the late Marcel Prawy in the Vienna State Opera . He also worked again for print media ( Kurier , Austria , Die Bühne ).

He also published books: In 1965 Löbl wrote a work about the conductor Herbert von Karajan under the title Das Wunder Karajan . He also wrote a two-volume encyclopedia together with Robert Werba with comments on the individual recordings (published in 1983, title operas on records ).

Many referred to Löbl as “the most prominent culture editor in the country”, not least because of his television comments, he was one of Austria's best-known critics.

He had to undergo two cancer operations and several chemotherapy treatments. Finally, on January 27, 2014, he succumbed to his long-term cancer. He was buried at the Vienna Central Cemetery .

Works

Books

• The Karajan Miracle, 1965
• Operas on records (with Robert Werba); Volume 1, 1983
• Operas on records (with Robert Werba); Volume 2, 1983
• The balcony lion. 60 years with celebrities from opera, theater and television, 2013
• After the premieres. My life in and with the opera, 2013

Sound carrier

• Holecek / Löbl / Tacet - quiet, quiet! : How to stay on the opera stage without exerting yourself; Preiser Records PR 9916

Awards (selection)

In 1976 Löbl received the Dr. Karl Renner Journalism Prize . In 1995 Löbl received the gold Nicolai Medal of the Vienna Philharmonic.

Web links

• Literature by and about Karl Löbl in the catalog of the German National Library
• Article in “The Puff Pastry”, No. 21, winter 1995/96
• Radio portrait of Karl Löbl in the Ö1 series Chronisten, Reporter, Aufklärer from 2002.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Andrea Schurian: Opera and theater critic Karl Löbl died. At: derstandard.at. January 28, 2014, accessed on January 30, 2014.
2. ↑ also released on an LP by Preiser Records: Heinz Holocek parodies and sings . ( Details here  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. )