TV REVIEW : ‘Karajan in Salzburg’: Man and Performer

Herbert von Karajan is an intensely private man, or so his publicists would have us believe. But he also understands the craft of publicity probably better than any conductor before him, and “Karajan in Salzburg” (tonight at 8 on Channel 24, 9 p.m. on Channels 28 and 15; also Saturday at 9 p.m. on Channel 50) is a canny, enticing and haunted piece of self-promotion.

The “Great Performances” program was produced for CAMI Video by Susan Froemke and Peter Gelb, the latter a longtime professional associate of the conductor. More a personal and artistic manifesto than either a concert/opera film or a biography, “Karajan in Salzburg” was filmed last year during the Salzburg Summer Festival.

The first third of the program shows Karajan rehearsing and finally performing portions of “Don Giovanni,” the production which “Great Performances” broadcast here in February. He coaxes and cajoles Samuel Ramey, Kathleen Battle and other singers, insistently but with surprising paternal patience, though a sotto voce eruption occurs when the conductor discovers that his chorus has other commitments.

The program also ends well, with similarly extended rehearsal/performance sequences devoted to the “Tannhauser” Overture and the Liebestod from “Tristan und Isolde,” with Jessye Norman. The ultimate performance is emotionally and musically opulent, and Karajan’s progress to that point a delight to witness.

The rest of the program takes Karajan away from immediate music-making, showing him in interviews, advising young singers and speeding around the countryside in a new Porsche. Though his wife appears in several scenes, most of this is impersonal--the detached routine of the great man surrounded by courtiers and supplicants.

Though no mention is made of Karajan’s previously expressed belief in reincarnation, the prospect of his death is explicitly discussed. It is also more subliminally suggested in the choice of performance clips, the finale of “Don Giovanni” and the “Liebestod.”

Karajan speaks frankly of his desire to preserve not just the aural product of his work, but visual records of himself in action, as well. This program is only one example of that. He is shown in his home studio editing film of himself conducting Verdi’s Requiem--again the death connection--for a future video disc.

Karajan has always been quick to exploit new technologies, and says that he is editing 43 productions, to have ready when video discs become a consumer reality.