Christa Ludwig was one of the most admired mezzo-sopranos of her generation, with a wide repertoire of both lieder and opera. She brought a fine sense of musicianship as well as drama to her performances. Her roles ranged from Dorabella in Così fan Tutte to Brangane in Tristan und Isolde and Clytemnestra in Elektra, and she was the creator of the role of Claire in Gottfried von Einem's Der Besuch der alten Dame. Her technique and upper register were solid enough to let her sing the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier and the Dyer's Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten, parts almost exclusively sung by sopranos -- though she did retreat from plans to sing Isolde and Brunhilde. She was also a noted lieder performer, especially of Mahler.

Her parents (tenor Anton Ludwig, who later became a stage director, and mezzo-soprano Eugenie Besalla-Ludwig) were both singers, and her first vocal studies were with her mother, who also taught her piano, flute, and cello. Her first performances were in 1954, at the age of 17, singing operatic arias she had learned from growing up in the theater. She made her operatic debut as Prince Orlofsky in Strauss' Die Fledermaus in 1946, at the Frankfurt State Opera, where she was a member of the company until 1952. She then moved to Darmstadt to study acting with the director Gustav Sellner. After two years, she and her mother (who was still teaching her) moved to Hanover, where she began to sing leading roles such as Carmen, Ortrud, and Kundry. Her Salzburg debut was in 1954 as Cherubino, and followed by her 1955 debut in the same role at the Vienna State Opera, at the invitation of Karl Böhm, where she sang for more than 30 years. In 1957, she sang with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, who encouraged her husband Walter Legge, the famous producer, to sign Ludwig with EMI records. Ludwig's United States debut was in 1959 in Chicago, as Dorabella. In the 1970s, she went through a vocal crisis due to menopause, and she took some of the most demanding roles out of her repertoire and began to give more attention to songs. Again she challenged the typical views of repertoire, and sang material, such as Winterreise, that is most often associated with male voices, especially baritones. Working with Leonard Bernstein, she developed a special affection for Mahler (whose music Bernstein championed when Mahler was relatively obscure.)

She was married to bass Walter Berry from 1957 until 1971, and their son, Marc Berry, is a popular song composer. She has a wide recorded legacy; among the best of her material is a Das Lied von der Erde under Bernstein (Sony) and a Brangane in Tristan und Isolde, with Vickers as Tristan and Dernesch as Isolde, under Karajan (EMI). Christa Ludwig died on April 24, 2021 at the age of 93 at her home near Vienna.

This busy tenor established his reputation early as a reliable artist in Mozart and Bach. With a voice less sensuous than those of Léopold Simoneau or Anton Dermota, he nonetheless was frequently engaged for stage performances, concert work, and recordings. Eventually, he ventured as far into a heavier repertory as Walter von Stolzing, a role he sang at the Bayreuth Festival. Kmentt's Metropolitan Opera debut -- in a speaking role -- awaited the new millennium, but still brought encomiums from audiences and the press. First intending to pursue a career as a pianist, Kmentt later studied singing at the Vienna Academy of Music with Hans Duhan, Elisabeth Rado, and Adolf Vogel. At that time, he was selected to tour Belgium and the Netherlands with a student opera ensemble that included two singers who would later achieve considerable fame: tenor Fritz Uhl and bass baritone Walter Berry. Kmentt's formal debut took place in 1950 with a performance in Vienna of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 conducted by Karl Böhm. In 1951, he made his professional stage debut singing in a Wiener Volksoper production of Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges. The year following, Kmentt became a member of the Wiener Staatsoper. For the first three years of his tenure, the company performed at the Theater an der Wien while awaiting reconstruction of the company's own house. For the reopening of the Staatsoper in 1955, Kmentt was cast as Jacquino in Fidelio, sharing the stage with such luminaries as Martha Mödl, Anton Dermota, and Ludwig Weber. That same year, he made his debut at the Salzburg Festival singing Dandini in Pfitzner's Palestrina. Mozart served for his introduction to La Scala in 1968 when he sang the title role in Idomeneo. Kmentt made his debut at Bayreuth the same year, singing Walter in Die Meistersinger. During the years of his prime, he also appeared frequently in operetta. When Kmentt gradually relinquished leading roles, he moved into comprimario parts, such as the Major-Domo in Der Rosenkavalier. Ironically, it was another Major-Domo, this one in Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, who finally brought Kmentt to the Metropolitan Opera in spring 2001. Among Kmentt's roles captured in recording are the tenor part in Bach's St. Matthew Passion under Møgens Wöldike, his Froh under Solti, and his Ferrando with Böhm, taped live at La Scala.

The Wiener Symphoniker (Vienna Symphony Orchestra) is a mainstay in European orchestral music, having premiered works that have become standard repertoire in the orchestral world. While its older neighbor, the Wiener Philharmoniker, may get more attention, the Wiener Symphoniker has cemented its role as a world-class orchestra.

The Wiener Symphoniker was founded in 1900 as the Wiener Concertverein. The founder and first conductor of the orchestra was Ferdinand Löwe, who established the new orchestra to present more concerts to the citizenry and for the performance of new compositions. The orchestra's premiere concert took place at the Wiener Musikverein on October 30, 1900. Löwe, a student of Anton Bruckner's, led the Wiener Symphoniker in the premiere of Bruckner's ninth symphony in 1903. In 1913, the orchestra moved its performing venue to the newly opened Wiener Konzerthaus. Due to financial concerns following World War I, the orchestra merged with the Wiener Tonkünstlerorchester in 1919. Löwe served as chief conductor until 1925. He was followed by Otto Gottesmann and Wilhelm Furtwängler. In 1933, the orchestra was renamed the Wiener Symphoniker. Oswald Kabasta led the orchestra from 1934-1938. Under Kabasta, the orchestra embarked on its first international tour to England and Italy. In 1938, following the invasion of Austria, the orchestra was brought under municipal control and was used for propaganda during World War II. The orchestra was disbanded in September of 1944.

Following the war, the Wiener Symphoniker was re-established in 1945 and gave its first post-war concert in September under the leadership of Hans Swarowsky and Josef Krips. Since 1946, the orchestra has taken part in and been a major sponsor of the Bregenzer Festspiele. Herbert von Karajan (1950-1960) and Wolfgang Sawallisch (1960-1970) are credited most with the revival of the Viennese sound for which the Wiener Symphoniker is known. In 1962, the Theater an der Wien reopened, and the Wiener Symphoniker has since performed there for staged productions. Since Sawallisch, the chief conductors for the orchestra have included Carlo Maria Giulini (1973-1976), Gennady Rozhdestvensky (1981-1983), and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (1991-1996). Philippe Jordan became the chief conductor in 2014, with a contract running through 2021. In 2018, the Wiener Symphoniker announced Andrés Orozco-Estrada as its next chief conductor. Orozco-Estrada is set to take the baton in 2021. Among the illustrious names who have guest conducted the orchestra are Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta, and Claudio Abbado.

The Wiener Symphoniker can be heard on hundreds of albums on major labels such as Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI Classics, and Orfeo, among many others. Since 2012, the orchestra has also recorded for its own Wiener Symphoniker label, on which it has recorded works by composers such as Mahler, Bruckner, and Berlioz. Under Jordan, the orchestra has recorded a full cycle of Beethoven's symphonies. The first, Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3, was released in 2017. The final two individual albums of this cycle, Symphonies Nos. 6 & 8 and Symphony No. 9, as well as the complete cycle set, were released in 2019. ~ Keith Finke

Carlos Kleiber was an important Austrian conductor from the 20th century. His discography is limited, but he is often regarded as one of the greatest conductors in history.

Kleiber was born in Berlin in 1930, and his father, Erich, was also a respected conductor. To distance themselves from the fascist activities of Hitler and Mussolini, his family relocated to Buenos Aires around the mid-'30s. Kleiber attended schools in Argentina and Chile, where he played the piano and sang. By this time, his musical talents were obvious, but his father wanted him to pursue a non-musical profession. In 1949 he traveled to Switzerland, where he began studying law and chemistry at ETH Zurich. He eventually grew unhappy with this decision, and his father allowed him to return to Buenos Aires in 1950 to study music. After he completed his studies in 1952, Kleiber traveled to Munich, where he started his first professional appointment as a répétiteur at the Theater am Gärtnerplatz. Two years later, he made his conducting debut in a production of Millöcker's Gasparone. He accepted a similar appointment in 1956 at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, and he became the conductor there in 1958. It was also around this time that he met the Slovenian ballet dancer Stanislava Brezovar, and they got married in 1961. Kleiber held conductor appointments with the Zurich Opera from 1964 to 1966, and the Württembergisches Staatstheater in Stuttgart from 1966 to 1968, and then he worked as a guest conductor with the Staatsoper in Munich.

Throughout the '70s, Kleiber had several debuts at major venues including the Vienna Operahouse in 1973, Covent Garden and La Scala in 1974, and he conducted the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1978. The milestones continued through the '80s, and he conducted debut performances with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1981, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in 1982, and with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra in 1988. During the late '70s, Kleiber gradually became more and more reclusive and reduced his public appearances. However, he continued accepting a limited number of guest conductor appointments and recording contracts until his retirement in the early '90s. All nine of his studio recordings were critically acclaimed, and his interpretations of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 and Symphony No. 7 were especially revered. Along with his reclusiveness, Kleiber had also grown wary about recording. He was worried that listeners would play his recordings at home and follow along in the score to identify every flaw in the performance. Consequently, many unauthorized, unplanned, and bootleg audio and video recordings of his live performances were made. After his retirement, he spent his final years at his home in Slovenia, and he passed away in 2004. The November 2010 issue of the BBC Music Magazine showed Kleiber in the top position on their list of "20 Greatest Conductors of all Time." ~ RJ Lambert