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Robert Dornhelm's new documentary 'Karajan, or Beauty as I see it' has been released on DVD by Deutsche Grammophon. In essence this is the definative film biography of the great conductor the musical world has been waiting for.
Dornhelm draws on both the 'fly-on-the-wall' style of Jasney's 1978 'Impressions' film and the more anecdotal manner of 'Maestro, Maestro' of 1999. This new documentary brings together interviews both with and about Karajan as well as a host of valuable concert and rehearsal footage. Dornhelm's main premise though is to try and show people what Karajan was like as a person as well as a musician - a challenge which he has surmounted with both insight and objectivity.
Everything is here: Karajan's powerful abilities as a conductor, his early start in Ulm and Aachen, the Wiener Staatsoper period, the Berlin Philharmonic and the last years of defiant decline. Although Dornhelm's approach is respectful, the controversial elements of Karajan's life - the Nazi issue for example, along with his treatment of singers and instrumentalists - are addressed both impartially and concisely. In so doing, Dornhelm avoids the laboured reverence of Freidel's 'Portrait' (available on Arthaus DVD) without resorting to the sensationalist muck-racking of Norman Lebrecht's 'The Maestro Myth'.
Although eminent colleagues like Georg Solti, Christa Ludwig, Gundula Janowitz, Anne Sophie-Mutter and Simon Rattle have their 'say' on Karajan, the subject is left largely to speak for himself. Sometimes Dornhelm cleverly intercuts performance footage from Karajan's various Unitel and Telemondial films with behind the scenes footage of rehearsal and backstage activity. Karajan's two video versions of Bruckner's Ninth are fused in montage to illustrate the transition from the dynamic maestro of the 1970s to the ailing cripple of the 1980s. The famous 1987 New Year's Concert is featured and many will be delighted to see Karajan's moving speech - omitted from both the CD and DVD versions of the occasion.
Karajan the man of action is not forgotten eiether: his love of fast cars, sailing and above all, flying. As Karajan executes a magnificent take-off from Salzburg airport to the strains of Richard Strauss' 'Alpinsinfonie' it is difficult not to be impressed by a man who was able to do so many different things so apparantly well.
Dornhelm is careful to show us something of Karajan's actual musicianship too in rehearsal footage of various works with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics. Here, and elsewhere Karajan's approach is both practical and imaginative; the instruction occasionally broken by a witty remark or a dirty joke. Interestingly, Dornhelm compares Karajan with his great rival Leonard Bernstein, comparing their styles and methods in respective rehearsal footage of Mahler's 5th. Contrary to popular myth, both conductors greatly admired each other and its a revelation to learn that when they met for the last time they hatched a plan to tour together with with the Vienna Philharmonic, Karajan conducting the first half of each concert; Bernstein the second. Given Karajan's failing health by then it's unlikely the project would ever have taken off but it's fascinating to imagine how a HvK/LB combination would have worked!
Perhaps the only omission in Dornhelm's film is actual coverage of the Sabine Meyer affair, where Karajan and Berlin Philharmonic waged war over the appointment of a new clarinetist. Maybe the story has been raked over so many times in the past that no-one wants to go through it yet again - either that, or Dornhelm knows that karajan admirers already know the ins and outs of a politically damaging saga that would make a whole documentary in itself. However, the friction between Karajan and the orchestra in their last years together is not ignored: Simon Rattle's remark about conducting the Berlin Philharmonic being akin to "a statue waiting to be toppled" is entirely apt.
Granted access to Karajan's various homes, Dornhelm again intercuts footage of the conductor at home in Anif and St.Moritz: and then shows the rooms as they are today: unchanged and empty, awaiting a homecoming that can never be. The final scenes of the film, which I will not reveal, are geninuely moving.
On the whole, I think the right balance has been struck here between contemporary interview and archive footage although some, like the New Year's Concert and the various opera clips are familiar from other documentaries. However, Dornhelm has assembled an impressive array of Karajan footage ranging from his 1941 Wagner night in Paris to his last appearance in Berlin for the 1988 New Year's Eve Concert; an event fondly remembered by pianist Evgeny Kissin. Of special interest is rarely seen footage of Karajan preparing 'Die Walkure' for the first Salzburg Easter Festival in 1967, one of the highlights of his entire career. Here we see Karajan as he would like to be remembered himself: the multi-talented man of action, making music from the fourth dimension.
Robert Kenchington.
