Karajan artists: Zoltán Kelemen – the constant gardener

When Karajan selected the cast for his complete “Ring” recording he naturally tried to get the best available singers for every part. His Alberich was certainly the best in his generation – Zoltán Kelemen. Kelemen (1926 – 1979) was a Hungarian bass-baritone who worked regularly with Karajan for more than twelve years. They collaborated on several studio recordings and performed together 56 times. The first joint project was the second season of “Boris Godunov” at the Salzburg Festival in 1966. Kelemen took on the part of the Jesuit Rangoni from Nicolae Herlea and he also sang it on Karajan’s only studio recording of Mussorgsky’s masterpiece in 1970. According to his own account, Karajan had the idea for the Salzburg Easter Festival during a “Boris Godunov” performance and – as is well known – in 1967 the first festival started with “The Valkyrie”. There’s no Alberich in “The Valkyrie”, so it was only in 1968 that Kelemen started in Karajan’s “Ring” with the very beginning of “Rheingold”. He also performed a series of this production at the Metropolitan Opera in New York in the following autumn and February 1969. A month later, “Siegfried” had its premiere. In this season at the Easter Festival, there were also two “Rheingold” performances, so Kelemen performed five Wagner operas in seven days! The cycle finished with “Götterdämmerung” in 1970. At that time, the recording was also completed and Kelemen as Alberich was the only singer in Karajan’s “Ring” project who in three operas always figured in the same role – on stage and in the studio. Altogether, Karajan engaged him for four of his most important opera projects within a year – “Götterdämmerung”, “Boris Godunov”, “Fidelio” (as Don Pizarro) and “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” (as Fritz Kothner).

The photo shows Kelemen, Dernesch, Ridderbusch, Vickers and Karajan recording “Fidelio”.
In 1972, Kelemen recorded “The Merry Widow” with Karajan (singing Baron Mirko Zeta) and he took on the amusing small part of Antonio, who claims justice for his flowerpot, in “The Marriage of Figaro”. Over a period of six years, he performed the gardener 26 times on almost every occasion when Karajan conducted the opera. Maybe he also would have appeared in his two last-ever performances of it in summer 1979 and 1980 but Kelemen died on 9 May 1979 at the age of only 53. Their last joint major project was the “Rheingold” film in November 1978 (we have some highly enjoyable photos from the set).

This film shows Karajan preparing the first scene of “Rheingold” with his assistant Peter Busse as a stand-in for Kelemen.

 

We’ve prepared playlists with Karajan and Zoltán Kelemen. Listen to them here.

—  P.R. Jenkins