Jon Vickers would have celebrated his 100th birthday on 29 October 2026. We look at his work with Herbert von Karajan, from their first meeting in Vienna to their performances and recordings of Fidelio, Otello and Tristan und Isolde.
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On June 7, 2026, Günther Schneider-Siemssen would have celebrated his 100th birthday. Although he spent most of his career behind the scenes, few stage designers were as closely associated with the visual world of Herbert von Karajan as he was. Over nearly three decades, conductor and designer developed a distinctive…
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“An orchestra does not produce sound by itself — it must be shaped.” When Herbert von Karajan began working with the newly founded Orchestre de Paris, he encountered an ensemble still at the beginning of its story — and still discovering its own musical identity. The Orchestre de Paris gave its inaugural concert on 14 November 1967 under…
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In 1965, Karajan invited the Staatskapelle Dresden for the first time to the Salzburg Festival for a series of five concerts...
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Gottlob Frick was a basso profundo at the Vienna State Opera in the 1950s and 60s who performed no fewer than 88 times with Karajan...
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No wonder Karajan was fascinated. Jean Cocteau was one of the last universal artists, a poet, painter, actor, filmmaker and stage designer. There was simply no one in Parisian artistic circles...
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Dennis Brain was the Fritz Wunderlich of the horn – Benjamin Britten, Francis Poulenc and Paul Hindemith composed works for him. Brain was principal horn player of the...
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The Swiss pianist Edwin Fischer was one of the most distinguished Bach, Mozart and Beethoven interpreters of his generation. Born in 1886, he was 22 years older than Karajan. Their first joint concert...
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For Karajan Martha Mödl was an indispensable singer in the 1950s and 60s. She worked with him at almost every crucial stage of his career after the war...
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George London was one of the singers who had an intensive working relationship with Karajan at the Vienna State Opera during the latter’s management of the institution (1957 – 1964)...
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Here you can download the full curriculum vitae of Herbert von Karajan!