“The applause”, according to the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, “threatened to last as long as a full-length opera”, and the legend of Carlos Kleiber’s Vienna “Carmen” was born. The Viennese audience in the opera house hailed the performance as a triumph. The cast was completed by the young Isobel Buchanan who stood in at this production at short notice and included Yuri Mazurok who was later to become a high ranking Verdi baritone. Plácido Domingo, still the young lyrical tenor, starred as “Don Jose”, and Elena Obraztsova gave a wonderful natural “Carmen”, a far cry from the usual she-devil erotic cliché. Carlos Kleiber conducted an extraordinary cast. In December 1978, the masterly Franco Zefirelli created a colourful and atmospheric imagery while the musical genius of Kleiber drew from the music a rhythmic vitality and subtle passion that never lost its transparency and lightness. The Zefirelli staging is the only premiere that Kleiber ever conducted.

The meticulous conductor only ever conducted a highly selected repertoire and among his very few audio and video recordings are only seven complete operas. Arthaus presents a sensational filmed document from the musical legacy of Carlos Kleiber: The wonderful staging of “Carmen” by director Franco Zeffirelli in a live recording from the Vienna State Opera in 1978.

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