... it would not be until he returned in the 1950s that we would explain "Rosenkavalier" to us in great detail, but to play it for him was an immediate revelation. The wonderful score can too often turn into a thick swirl of sound but with Kleiber it became totally translucent with every theme and motif delicately visible and the lift and lilt he gave to the Viennese waltz has never been surpassed. He not only ennabled [sic[ more of the words to be heard than ever before but also pointed out to us esoteric musical comment on the score that we were unaware of: at the Marschallin's levée the sellers of puppies are protesting that the little pets are house-trained (zimmerrein) but a descending scales [sic] on the violins and oboes indicates plainly that they have just in fact piddled on the carpet. He would also maintain that Baron Ochs' body-servant, is indeed his bastard son, but I have not been able to work that one out and it could well have been one of his dead-pan jokes. He was always imperturbable; I was playing on the famous night when Lotte Lehmann as the Marschallin burst into tears during her monologue in Act 1, left the stage and ran straight into the arms of Norman Feasey, then a young repetiteur, crying: "I can't sing, I've lost my voice!" Rumours were rife - a relative had been taken to a concentration camp, a young lover had left her - the real reason was never known but the Marschallin's monologue would certainly have been agonizingly apposite for an ageing woman who had just been jilted. Miraculously, Hilda Konetzni was in the audience and was able to replace her after a short interval; Kleiber never turned a hair but it did not make for the most sparkling performance that night!... << less