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> Hans Knappertsbusch - In Memoriam
Hans Knappertsbusch
1888-1965
In Memoriam
An appreciation by HANS HOTTER*
from: Opera, January 1966, p. 21-23
On 13 August 1964 Hans Knappertsbusch conducted for the last time: it
was Parsifal in the Festspielhaus at Bayreuth. In the interval he asked
me to see him and confided to me that it was planned to make a film
about him and his work. He asked whether I would like to speak the
commentary and I agreed with enthusiasm. He then concluded in his rough
way, belied by the twinkling eyes: 'Now get off to your dressing room,
let's have a beautiful Good Friday spell! See you again for the
Holländer in Munich. No production jokes, please! It's Wagner's
opera: let's present him and not ourselves!' I did not then realize
that these would be the last words he would ever speak to me. The
planned co-operation, to which I had looked forward with such happy
anticipation, never materialized. Even in the autumn of 1964 illness
prevented him from conducting 'Der fliegende Holländer'- my first
commission as a producer in the Munich Opera House. Now, approximately
a year later, on November 7, with a Parsifal at the Vienna State Opera
in his memory, we have said good-bye in our own way to a truly great
conductor. Throughout the performance I had the feeling that he was
with us in spirit, and all the evening long the thought of him would
not leave me.
Knappertsbusch was one of those strong personalities which had a direct
and indirect influence on my artistic career from the time of my youth.
We have all learnt how lasting and decisive can be the impressions
gained from musical experiences in our early years. As a student in
Munich I had the good fortune to hear my first operas in that era of
the 1920s which, under the musical direction of the young
Knappertsbusch, became part of the brilliant history of the Munich
Opera. Even then, from an admiring distance, never dreaming how my
career would develop, I felt something of the breaths of Olympian air
which surrounded this extraordinary man.
I have never really lost this feeling of respectful admiration
throughout the later years of close co-operation. Perhaps this was due
to a certain reserve which presents intimate friendship between two
persons but which usually proves to be the ideal prerequisite for a
fruitful and harmonious working basis. I respected his authority, even
when I did not agree with him - or, shall we say, when my inexperience
led me to disagree with him. When he remarked briefly, after the
19-year-old youth had attended an audition at the Munich Opera,
arranged by well-meaning friends: 'The lad should just get on with his
studies', the student swallowed his disappointment that a personal
meeting had not resulted; but later the Wotan or Dutchman on the stage
felt pleasure in seeing one of those typically elegant gestures from
the rostrum which meant that 'our Kna' was well satisfied. This
rigorous man, who poured the relentless wrath of the gods over my head
when my voice failed at the end of a performance through hay fever and
bronchitis, was big enough to come on to the stage after a successful
performance a few months later and to say to me in the presence of the
rest of the cast: 'You were excellent. I behave stupidly a short time
ago'.
* * *
The purpose of these few lines is not to enumerate or describe the
artistic and human qualities of this great conductor. But perhaps a few
remarks and some events, either from personal experience or as related
by reliable witnesses, will help to make a clearer and more complete
picture of this man for the future. Those who knew him, and have heard
one or other of the many anecdotes, will perhaps still find pleasure in
remembering what they have heard and perhaps experienced themselves.
There is repeated evidence of how strong were the authoritative, some
times magical rays which radiated from this aristocratic master of the
art of conducting, and how nobody could escape being aware of them. In
private life, too, one felt them. There were two things which I always
noticed about him. There was his blunt directness, often tending to
caprice, brooking no opposition and occasionally having the power to
hurt, yet linked with a genuine sense of just objectivity to everybody,
including himself. Parallel with this there was a gentleness which one
would never have suspected behind the rough exterior of his brusque
manner. Most of the stories which were already classics during his
life-time illustrate this point. They will live on, spiced with the dry
humour of his Westphalian homeland, often near the bounds of politeness
and sometimes going beyond them.
Famous names meant nothing to him; the only thing that counted was
ability. On the other hand, he always had understanding for the needs
and circumstances of the 'small fry', who never appear in the front row
of an opera company. There is, for example, the revealing story of the
prompter and the stage band which lost its place. During the interval
Knappertsbusch made one of his rare appearances on the stage and in a
rough and angry voice asked which idiot had given the stage band the
wrong cue. He was given the name of the culprit, a reliable, quietly
modest but easily offended prompter. Knappertsbusch said quietly:
'Well, better say nothing to him, he might take offence!' He turned to
go but suddenly spun round and in a somewhat louder voice added: 'But
at the next performance, when we get to that spot, lock the fellow in
the ...'
He could be trenchant about the musical interpretations of some of his
fellow-conductors. Once the conductor of a certain performance of
Tristan und Isolde heard that Knappertsbusch had been in the auditorium
for a short while. Flattered by the presence of the distinguished
visitor, he asked next day: 'Well, Professor, how did you like my
Tristan?' Knappertsbusch's reply was: 'I never knew you had composed
one too!' Then there was the spitefully ironic conversation with
another famous conductor: 'Oh, you mean X? Yes, my dear colleague, he
is excellent, better than I, in fact almost as good as you !' Once
something happened to me in a performance whilst he was conducting,
something which happens occasionally to any singer - even though I had
sung the part more than a hundred times, in a momentary lack of
concentration memory failed, the words were forgotten and an important
sentence was just not sung. On this occasion a few strong words of
displeasure penetrated audibly through the music from the conductor's
stand. That was all. No reproaches after the performance, no reaction
during the next few days.
Weeks later I appeared in the same part with 'Kna' again on the
rostrum. We came to the same passage and I waited with every effort of
concentration, really on my toes, for the entry. Suddenly I noticed
that he had risen from his stool to his full height, turned his baton
upside down and was shaking the thick end of it at me with a
threatening and meaningful gesture. It would not have needed much more
to make me forget my part again ! The same scene was re-enacted in a
series of performances of this opera throughout the following years. A
string of such stories could be told about him. The great magician of
the rostrum is no longer with us. In the minds of those who were able
to
work with him, however, the memory lives on: sitting there, upright and
carefully considering, giving his
unique, precise sign, small, hardly noticeable, suddenly demanding and
dominating, forceful, growling, shouting and then again radiantly
happy, never forgetting the brief little gesture of thanks to the
company - an exceptional man in an age which has become so poor in real
individualism.
Munich paid tribute to Hans
Knappertsbusch in a short, but impressive, ceremony in the National
Theatre on October 31. Although it was a fine Sunday morning, the
theatre was packed with representatives of every section of
public life, to say nothing of music-lovers and admirers of 'Kna', as
he was known here. In a speech, Rudolf Hartmann (administrator of the
Bavarian State opera) characterized Knappertsbusch as 'one of the few
for whom constructive devotion to the work of art meant more than the
obtrusion of his own personality'. Meinhard von Zallinger conducted the
andante from Brahms's Third symphony, Robert Heger conducted the chorus
in the Titurel music from Parsifal, and Joseph Keilberth concluded with
the funeral music from Götterdämmerung.
ALASTAIR MacLEOD