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George London was one of the most celebrated singing actors of his generation, with an imposing stage presence. In addition to excelling in a wide range of roles, from Mozart's Don Giovanni to Wotan to Scarpia to Escamillo, he was the first North American singer to appear on the stage of Moscow's Bolshoi Theater, where in 1960 he triumphed in arguably the greatest Russian male role, Boris Godunov.

London began his vocal training after his family moved to Los Angeles, when he was 15. He made his operatic debut as Doctor Grenvil in Verdi's La traviata at the Hollywood Bowl, and for a while sang with Frances Yeend and Mario Lanza in the Bel Canto Trio. In 1949, he decided to make his career in Europe, and after an audition with Karl Böhm, joined the Vienna State Opera, where he made his debut as Amonasro, and was an overnight success. He remained a favorite there throughout his career, and was named a Kammersänger.

He made his Bayreuth Festival debut the year it reopened, 1951, as Amfortas, and he also appeared there in the title role of The Flying Dutchman. In 1962, he sang the complete Ring in Cologne, under the direction of Wieland Wagner.

In 1966, one of his vocal chords became paralyzed, and he retired from singing. However, he remained very active in the musical world. In 1971, he established a foundation for young singers (a list of just the most prominent award recipients includes Renée Fleming, Kathleen Battle, Jerry Hadley, Barbara Hendricks, James Morris, and Dawn Upshaw).

He also served as artistic administrator of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington, D.C.) from 1968 to 1971, and executive director of the National Opera Institute from 1971 to 1976, as well as the director of the Washington Opera from 1975 to 1979. In 1975, in Seattle, he staged the first-ever complete Ring Cycle in English.

During her career, Swiss-born soprano Lisa della Casa was known for her engaging portrayals of Mozart and Strauss roles, particularly Strauss' Arabella. She began her studies at the age of 15 with Margarete Haeser, who remained her only teacher. Della Casa made her debut as Cio-Cio-san in 1941 in Solothurn-Biel and in 1943 became a member of the Zürich City Theater. In normal times she no doubt would soon have been singing in houses in Germany, Austria, and Italy as well, but she remained in neutral Switzerland until after World War II ended in 1945. One of her first major appearances outside Switzerland was at the Salzburg Festival in 1947. Engaged for that production on the recommendation of Maria Cebotari, she sang the part of Zdenka in Strauss' Arabella. She was engaged right away to return the following year for another Strauss role, that of the Countess in Capriccio.

Della Casa became a member of the Vienna Staatsoper in 1947, but continued singing with the Zürich City Theater until 1950. In Zürich she sang a wide variety of roles: Pamina in The Magic Flute, Gilda in Rigoletto, and, unusually, Serena in Porgy and Bess (the Gershwin estate's insistance on all-black casting for that opera has not been followed in Europe as carefully as in the United States). She also sang a noted world premiere in Burkhard's Die schwarze Spinne as "The Young Woman" (1949) and created the triple role of the female leads in Gottfried von Einem's Der Prozess (1953).

She made her British debut as the Countess in Mozart's Nozze di Figaro at Glyndebourne in 1951, and sang the title role of Strauss's Arabella for the first time at her Munich debut the same year. Arabella became her signature role. Her first appearance at Covent Garden was in that role on a tour with the Bavarian Staatsoper. Critics found in her voice the "spring and silver" that Strauss said he called for in such parts, and her attractive and elegant looks and unmannered acting style made her an audience favorite.

She sang regularly at the Metropolitan Opera from 1953 to 1968, again appearing as Mozart's Countess. Of Mozart's heroines, she excelled in Donna Elvira, Donna Anna, Pamina, and Fiordiligi. She sang Chryothemis in Strauss's Elektra, in Ariadne auf Naxos, and even tried Salome (an attempt she admitted was an experiment). Since she had a wide range, she became one of the few singers to excel, in turn, in all three of the major parts in Der Rosenkavalier: Sophie, Octavian, and Die Marschallin.

In 1952, she received the honorary title of Kammersängerin of Austria. She was invited to sing at the 1952 Bayreuth Festspielhaus, where she appeared as Eva in Die Meistersinger. She was, however, bothered by the lingering sense of the darker side of German nationalism she sensed at that shrine to Richard Wagner and turned down all further requests to sing there.

She had a reputation as a thoughtful, highly principled artist and person. She was known for her criticism of the dishonorable aspects of the "music business" and loathed the intrigues, jealousies, and cabals that often infested the operatic world. She also felt that star egos prevented major singers from working together as ensembles. She retired from singing unexpectedly in 1974.

Soprano Sena Jurinac (pronounced Sehn-ya Yoo-ree-nahts) was among that extraordinary ensemble of Mozart singers to have emerged from the Vienna Staatsoper immediately after the end of WW II. Even in the company of Schwarzkopf, Seefried, Höngen, Kunz, Schöffler, and others, the young artist with the glowing voice and assured stage manner proved herself a unique singer, making her mark with definitive interpretations of Cherubino and Octavian, Dorabella and Donna Elvira (the latter second only to Schwarzkopf's magnificent portrayal). She later undertook more dramatic roles, interpreting them expertly, if sometimes sounding out of her depth vocally. Nonetheless, she was one of the world's most treasured artists in the third quarter of the twentieth century and many of her greatest roles are preserved on disc.

The daughter of a Croatian doctor, Jurinac began her musical training early. While in the primary and secondary schools of Zagreb, she pursued music at the Zagreb Musical Academy. After studying with Milka Kostrencic and less than a week before her 21st birthday, she made her operatic debut with the Zagreb Opera in the role of Mimì. Her success led to further leading roles in Le nozze di Figaro and Faust as well as secondary, but critical, roles in Parsifal and Das Rheingold. On the first of May 1945, Jurinac made her debut with the Vienna Staatsoper in one of her signature roles, Cherubino in Figaro. Her full lyric soprano made her valuable for both soprano and mezzo roles and she was assigned numerous parts done equally well by either voice category. Not surprisingly, she was engaged by Salzburg in 1947 and again in 1948 and was well received on both occasions. Her La Scala debut as Cherubino also took place in 1948. The next year brought triumphs at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and at the Edinburgh Festival.

In 1949, she also began an affiliation with England's Glyndebourne Festival, endearing herself to the English public and giving them several of her most enchanting Mozart interpretations. Three recordings resulted from her Glyndebourne association, recordings which still merit strong recommendations.

During the early '50s, Jurinac began to gravitate toward roles less equivocal in placement, adding the Countess to her endearing Cherubino, moving from Dorabella to Fiordiligi and later replacing her Octavian with a poised and reflective Marschallin. She moved from Marzelline in Fidelio to Leonore, a considerably greater leap in terms of vocal depth. The former role was captured effectively on disc in 1953 with Furtwängler leading the Vienna Philharmonic, while her Leonore was recorded in the late 1950s under the direction of Hans Knappertsbusch. Likewise, Jurinac moved from Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni to Donna Anna, where her short top register was sorely taxed. Still, the voice remained uniquely beautiful even as recorded under Fricsay.

Jurinac's relationship with America was less than fortunate. Intended by Samuel Barber for the title role in his opera Vanessa, she began study of the music, but did not proceed and was replaced by Eleanor Steber. Although Steber was highly creditable in the assignment, the thought of Jurinac's stillborn performance lingers as a tantalizing might-have-been. In San Francisco, she made her debut as Butterfly in 1959 and returned not often enough, finally giving the audience there her mature, well-conceived Marschallin. Chicago heard Jurinac in only one role, Desdemona in a 1963 production of Otello.

Anton Dermota was a Slovenian lyric tenor known for his interpretations of Mozart in the mid-20th century. Throughout his long career, he also performed concert music and lieder, and served as a music educator. He was born in 1910 in the town of Kropa, Slovenia, which was a community of metalworkers and blacksmiths. His father was also a metalworker and earned a small income fabricating nails for construction. As children, Dermota and his siblings supplemented their inadequate diets by foraging fruit and stealing from neighboring farmers' fields. In the late 1920s he attended the Ljubljana School of Organists, and later he changed his focus to singing. In 1934 he won a scholarship to study music in Vienna, where he received vocal lessons from Marie Radó-Danielli. He made his operatic debut that same year at the Cluj-Napoca National Opera Theater in Romania. A short while later, he accepted an invitation from Bruno Walter to join the Vienna Staatsoper. Dermota made his debut there in 1936 and sang his first major role in 1937 as Alfredo in Verdi's La Traviata. He also made his Salzburg Festival debut that same year, with Arturo Toscanini conducting Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. He became a celebrated and beloved fixture in Vienna and remained with the Staatsoper for over 40 years. In addition to his career in opera, Dermota was also an active recitalist and gave countless performances accompanied by his wife, pianist Hilde Berger-Weyerwald. For 30 years he remained in high demand and toured extensively, performing at every major opera house in Europe and Australia, and the Teatro Colón of Argentina. In the realm of concert music, he was respected for his performances of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. In 1966 he and his wife began teaching at the University of Music and Performing Arts of Vienna. He celebrated his 40th anniversary with the Vienna Staatsoper in 1977, and in 1979 he sang in the United States for the first time, at a recital in Stanford, California. Two years later he sang the role of Tamino in Mozart's The Magic Flute, in his final performance with the Vienna Staatsoper. He continued performing in Slovenia and Austria until 1989, when he died from heart failure in Vienna. ~ RJ Lambert

Thoroughly Viennese, bass-baritone Erich Kunz excelled in serious roles (although he sang rather few), comic parts and in operetta characterizations. An indispensable participant in recording producer Walter Legge's Champagne Operetta series in the early 1950s, Kunz, together with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, defined Viennese operetta style -- its lightness, grace, and charm. With a rich, masculine voice, he was a definitive Figaro, Leporello, and Papageno in the tradition of Mozart performance that sprang from the Vienna Opera immediately after WWII. An incomparable Beckmesser, his interpretation was preserved on two live recordings, and he left a number of delightful recordings of Viennese café and university songs.

Kunz studied in his native Vienna, primarily with Theodore Lierhammer at the Vienna Academy. His debut took place at Tropau in 1933 as Osmin (a part for deep bass) in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Following that, he sang with a number of smaller German theaters before being engaged by the Breslau Opera for three years. Kunz made his first acquaintance with England when he was offered an opportunity to understudy at the Glyndebourne Festival in 1936. He was soon thereafter assigned several smaller roles.

In 1941, Kunz became a part of the company at the Vienna Staatsoper where he remained throughout his career; he was given the title of Kammersänger in 1948. During the war years, he sang throughout Austria and Germany, primarily in Mozart and Wagner. He made his debut at the Salzburg Festival in 1942 as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte and in 1943 became the youngest artist ever to have appeared in a major role at the Bayreuth Festival when he sang Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger.

Once the hostilities ended, Kunz's career assumed a still more international flavor. Opera performances took him to Florence, Rome, Naples, Paris, Brussels, Budapest, and Buenos Aires. His role at the Salzburg Festival grew and he was a part of the Vienna Staatsoper troupe touring England and France in 1947. The following year brought his debut at the Edinburgh Festival.

A Metropolitan Opera debut waited until 1952, but Kunz's appearance as Leporello on November 26 brought a warm response from the audience and positive reviews from the critics. Both local and national writers commented upon his handsome voice and subtle comic skills. Many could recall only a few comparable artists in a role frequently immersed in slapstick routine. The Metropolitan Opera enjoyed his presence for just two years. In addition to Leporello, Kunz appeared as Mozart's Figaro, Beckmesser, and Faninal in Rosenkavalier. Chicago heard his treasurable Harlequin in Ariadne auf Naxos and Leporello, both in 1964 and, two seasons later, his wily, yet innocent Papageno in Die Zauberflöte.

While musical tastes had moved from the elegant Mozart style of post-war Vienna to an earthier, more robust Italianate approach by the 1960s, Kunz's inimitable stage persona lost nothing of its potency. Nor did his voice; he continued to sing well even in his sixties and continued to undertake small roles (unforgettable cameos, all) to the end of a long career. In addition to opera house appearances, Kunz graced the stage of the Vienna Volksoper from time to time, giving lessons to both audiences and fellow artists in operetta style and singing.

Among the recordings of lasting value Kunz made during his prime years are, besides Meistersinger (two live from Bayreuth), Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte and each and every one of his operetta discs on Angel Records/EMI.

Bass Walter Berry grew, by measured and steady advancement, into one of the leading artists of his time. Beginning at the Vienna Staatsoper at the early age of 21, he progressed through the major Mozart baritone and bass roles to such weightier challenges as Beethoven's Pizarro and Wagner's Kurwenal, Telramund, and even Wotan. He was able to transmute the sunny, rounded, very Viennese sound of his wide-ranging instrument into something more potent, more incisive for his Wagner roles and he became one of the most celebrated Wozzecks of his day. His musicianship and sturdy voice made him a welcome guest at many of the world's leading opera venues and he was regarded as an affecting recitalist as well.

Originally intending to pursue a career in engineering, Berry switched to vocal study and trained with Hermann Gallos at the Vienna Musical Academy. He made his debut as a soloist in Honegger's Jeanne-d'Arc and soon thereafter joined the Staatsoper. As early as 1953, he was singing Masetto at Salzburg, the first of an outstanding gallery of Mozart characterizations. At the festival, he also participated in the premieres of Gottfried von Einem's Prozess (1953), Rolf Leibermann's Penelope (1954), and Werner Egk's Irische Legende (1954).

America heard Berry for the first time when he presented his genial Mozart Figaro at Chicago's Lyric Opera in 1957. Three years later, he returned to Chicago as part of a more stellar cast (Schwarzkopf, Streich, his then-wife Christa Ludwig, and Eberhard Wächter) to offer a Figaro unchallenged by any other than Cesare Siepi's. Berry subsequently sang Leporello, Don Alfonso, Fernando (Fidelio), and Baron Ochs in Chicago.

On October 2, 1966, Berry made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in a production of Strauss' Die Frau Ohne Schatten conducted by Karl Böhm. Together with James King's Emperor, Leonie Rysanek's Empress and Christa Ludwig's Dyer's Wife, Berry's Barak was hailed as a magnificent accomplishment and an immense popular success. A live recording with that same quartet of principals, captured in Salzburg in 1974, reveals each singer performing at such a pitch of vocal and interpretive splendor as to have made the collaboration legendary. Although his marriage to Ludwig had ended in 1971, Berry was still the partner of choice for the mezzo-soprano's intense and soaring Dyer's Wife. Berry made his Covent Garden debut as Barak in 1976 and sang the role in San Francisco that same year.

Berry's increasingly powerful voice tended toward the lower end of bass-baritone spectrum and his Baron Ochs managed the bottommost notes with authority. His recording with Bernstein is both substantially sung and interpreted with Viennese lightness. Berry had accumulated an extensive discography by the time of his death, remaining in good voice until the very end of his life (he participated in a Renée Fleming Strauss recital shortly before his death). His hearty and endearing Papageno was recorded twice. His Pizarro in the 1961 Klemperer recording of Fidelio, despite the conductor's slow pacing, served notice that his was an art destined for more than Mozart. His singing of the bass arias in Klemperer's recording of Bach's St. Matthew Passion is fluent and deeply felt, notwithstanding, once again, some glacial tempi.

Though never quite viewed as a star personality, Berry crafted his own unique spot among the great singers who reigned in the twentieth century's second half.

One of the most acclaimed operatic and orchestral conductors of his generation, Karl Bohm was one of the most influential musicians and recording artists in the postwar classical world. As a specialist in Mozart, Wagner, and Strauss, he had few peers and his expertise extended to the music of Haydn on one end and Schoenberg and Berg on the other.

Bohm was born in Graz, Austria, of German-Bohemian descent (the name "Bohm" literally translates as "Bohemian") on his father's side and French-Alsatian background on his mother's side. He was the son of Leopold Bohm, an attorney, and the nephew of Austria's former Minister of War, General Stoger-Steiner. Bohm earned a law degree in deference to his father's wishes, but his real interest lay in music -- he studied privately in Graz and later in Vienna, and by 1915 was coaching singers at the Graz Opera, even as he worked toward a career in law. He made his debut as a conductor at Graz in 1917, with Viktor Nessler's forgotten opera Der Trompeter von Sackingen, a work that Bohm later described as "something for the tastes of a provincial choral society." In 1919 he received his doctorate in law, but Bohm had already begun a serious career in music.

Bohm's first great triumph came soon after, with the Graz production of Wagner's Lohengrin, for which he added extra singers from the city's choral society, and then spent months rehearsing every part in painstaking detail, even singing each part himself with the vocalists -- although he wore out his own health with this effort, the resulting performances were an artistic and critical triumph that had far-reaching consequences for Bohm. Among those in attendance at the performance was Karl Muck, one of the leading conductors of the day, famed at the time for his work at Bayreuth as well as with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Muck offered to train Bohm further in Wagner's music, and the younger man spent his apprenticeship with Muck working on the Ring cycle, Parsifal, Tristan und Isolde, and Meistersinger. It was with this groundwork that Bohm was prepared to work on a new production of Tristan, which became one of the works for which Bohm was most famous.

In 1921, Bohm was solidly entrenched in Graz when he was offered the chance to join the Munich State Opera as an assistant to Bruno Walter, the leading light among the younger generation of conductors. The circumstances of his audition were most unusual -- he was allowed the chance to conduct Weber's Der Freischutz with only a single hour's rehearsal for the orchestra, which allowed him to work on only one of the opera's three acts. He chose the third act, and in one scene noted the absence of clarinets, over the passage where the Hermit enters. The musicians insisted there was no clarinet part, and Bohm ordered the score out of archives -- he found the clarinet part, obscured under the stains from oil lamps, and received the congratulations of Walter and the job as his assistant. Bohm later described this seeming reduction in rank, to assistant conductor of a first-rate opera company, as a vital element in his education. He spent six years in Munich working under Walter, conducting 528 performances of 73 different operas, a unique and priceless learning experience.

The most important part of this experience lay with Mozart's and Wagner's operas. In 1927, Bohm accepted an appointment as music director at Darmstadt, where he gained further experience conducting modern operatic works, including Berg's Wozzeck.

Fate played a hand in 1930 when Bohm conducted Beethoven's Fidelio in Darmstadt as part of a celebration of the 150th anniversary of Beethoven's birth. The Ninth Symphony had received a lackluster performance under another conductor; when Bohm's performance of the opera rescued the festivities, with one critic writing "That was the Beethoven celebration. That was the Beethoven celebration." Fidelio was to remain at the core of his repertory over the next 50 years.

In 1931, Bohm moved on to the same position at the Hamburg Opera, and in 1933, he met Richard Strauss for the first time, when the composer came to Hamburg to help in the preparation of the premiere of his opera Arabella. Bohm's contact with Strauss was a pivotal moment in his career on several levels, leading not only to a close relationship between the two for the next 16 years, but to a much deeper understanding of Mozart's operas, growing out of Strauss' devotion to Mozart. Bohm also became an increasingly familiar figure at the podium in the concert hall, and made his debut with the Vienna Symphony in the early '30s. His first chance to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic came in April of 1933 when the orchestra's music director, Clemens Krauss, resigned and Bohm stepped into the breach for a concert. It marked the beginning of a long, productive relationship with the orchestra.

Bohm faced his first career setback in 1933 following the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany. He was called to the office of an attorney in Hamburg who had assumed the post of the party's official representative in the city, and was informed that the current music director, as a non-Aryan, would momentarily be dismissed, and that Bohm was the logical choice for the job -- but for the fact that they could find no record of his party membership. When confronted about what party he belonged to, the conductor replied "Music." He was denied the post after refusing to join the Nazi Party.

In 1934, following Fritz Busch's forced resignation as music director of the Dresden Opera, Bohm took up the Dresden post. Although he was later criticized for this, Bohm retained a cordial friendship with Busch himself. The Dresden post led to other appointments, which, in turn, resulted in the beginning of his international career. In the mid-'30s, he made his London debut at Covent Garden and Queen's Hall, conducting the Saxon State Opera and Orchestra.

Bohm's musical activities during the Nazi era were extensive, both in Germany and Austria, where he conducted many of the Vienna Philharmonic's subscription concerts following the country's annexation by Germany in 1938, and became director of the Vienna State Opera on January 1, 1943, a post that he held until the Allied victory in 1945. He recorded many works with the Vienna Opera and Philharmonic, as well as the Dresden Staatskapelle Orchestra. Among Bohm's important and groundbreaking recordings during this era were the Bruckner Symphonies Nos. 4 and 5, several of Strauss' and Mozart's operas, and the symphonies of Mozart and Brahms, among others.

Bohm's activities during World War II were seldom written about during his lifetime, although they were much discussed. On one level, he was courageous musical figure, championing the music of Richard Strauss, conducting the opera Die Schweigsame Frau ("The Silent Woman") despite the official disdain with which the work -- with its libretto written by the outlawed, "non-Aryan" Stefan Zweig -- was held in official government circles (Hitler himself, at Strauss' heartfelt and unyielding insistence, allowed an exception to the ban on performance, but then declined to attend), and Strauss' subsequent opera, Daphne, which was dedicated to Bohm. He also sheltered a Jewish industrialist for over a year in Vienna, quietly challenging the Nazi-era regime, even as he participated in official functions on behalf of the government and the party.

As director of the Vienna State Opera, Bohm brought the company's standards back up from a low that they'd hit at the end of 1938, after the impact of the German annexation and the departure of many of the company's best musicians. During the war, he conducted the work of such other contemporary composers as Hans Pfitzner and Theodore Berger, but his most important commitment was to Richard Strauss. From the comparative safety of Vienna, where Strauss had fled -- under the protection of the appointed governor -- after his falling out with Nazi officialdom, Bohm staged an 80th birthday celebration of the composer's music.

Bohm was banned from public performances in Germany and Austria in the wake of the Allied victory in 1945, but he became a frequent guest of opera companies elsewhere in Europe, and from 1950 until 1954 served as director of German repertory at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In 1954, he returned to Vienna and, in a bitter victory over his rival Clemens Krauss, was given the directorship of the Vienna State Opera, where he conducted the production of Beethoven's Fidelio that not only reopened the rebuilt opera house, but was the subject of an NBC prime-time network special (Call to Freedom) early in 1956. Among his most notable recordings during this period in Vienna was his performance of Strauss' Die Frau Ohne Schatten for English Decca. In February of 1956, Bohm also made his long-delayed debut in America, as a guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

In March of 1956 he resigned from the Vienna Philharmonic's music directorship amid criticism over his frequent absences from the city. Bohm never took another music director's spot, preferring conducting to the distractions of administration.

His Metropolitan Opera debut, and his first performance in Manhattan, took place on October 28, 1957, when he opened the company's 1957-1958 season with a new production of Mozart's Don Giovanni, in which Bohm's work was reviewed as "an artistic sensation...cast[ing] its spell over a grateful audience." Bohm was later praised in the New York Herald Tribune for welding an often competitive group of singers into "the most patrician operatic ensemble imaginable." In the 1959 season, he not only revived Don Giovanni, but conducted a highly praised new production of Wagner's Die Meistersinger Von Nurnburg, and, later still, Alban Berg's Wozzeck.

In 1960, Bohm made his Carnegie Hall debut conducting the New York Philharmonic for the first time, in a program of pieces by Mozart, Hindemith, and Brahms that was a great critical and popular success. In 1961, he brought the Berlin Philharmonic on tour of the United States, conducting a program that included Strauss' Don Juan and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7. That same year, he also conducted Wagner's Parsifal at the Metropolitan Opera for the first time. And with the New York Philharmonic in November of 1962, now at their new home in Philharmonic (later Avery Fisher) Hall at Lincoln Center, he conducted Mozart's Symphony No. 41 (Jupiter) and Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 which, in those days, was still a work little heard in the United States.

During this same period, Bohm's son, the actor Carl (aka Karlheinz) Boehm, achieved some prominence in international movies. During the early '60s, he was seen in major roles in such blockbusters as MGM's The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm, although his best starring part was as the lead in Michael Powell's classic Peeping Tom.

Even as Karl Bohm's renown in America was growing, his obligations in Europe were burgeoning as well. Apart from operatic engagements and a growing body of recordings, mostly for the Deutsche Grammophon label (although the most highly praised of his three recordings of Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte was done in London, for EMI), involved work with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra (of which he also served as president), the Philharmonia Orchestra in London, the Saxon State Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony, and the Vienna Philharmonic. His repertory by this time embraced everything from Haydn and Mozart to Berg and Schoenberg, and in addition to steady concert commitments throughout the '60s and '70s, he also made hundreds of recordings for Deutsche Grammophon, including new performances (primarily live) of virtually all of Richard Strauss' major operas, all of the Mozart operas, the Beethoven symphonies, the late Mozart symphonies, and most of the rest of his repertory, up to and including 20th century works. In 1964, in recognition of his career, the Austrian government granted Bohm the honorary title of "General Music Director of Austria," while in Germany, a statue of the conductor stands at the Berlin Opera House.

His greatest American triumph took place in October of 1966, when he conducted Strauss' Die Frau Ohne Schatten at the Metropolitan Opera. In its review of the concert, The New York Times critic wrote of Bohm, "Among the present group of Met opera conductors, he towers like a colossus."

In 1967, Bohm brought the Vienna Philharmonic to Carnegie Hall and the Montreal Worlds Fair ("Expo '67"), and under Bohm's baton the Vienna Philharmonic later played a role in the 125th anniversary celebration of the New York Philharmonic's founding. With the deaths of Furtwangler, Walter, and Klemperer, Bohm was the last conductor from 19th-century Austria or Germany to remain active into the 1970s, and his work continued at a furious pace -- including tours of Japan with the Vienna Philharmonic -- until he suffered a stroke in 1981, from which he never fully recovered.

Bohm's recordings are noted for their elegance of nuance. A distinctly restrained figure at the podium, he encouraged precise playing from his musicians, and painstaking rehearsal from his singers. With this approach, he was able to coax exceptionally fine performances from orchestras and casts of decidedly uneven capabilities, allowing them to rise to the occasion of his performances, and superb work from ensembles such as the Vienna, Berlin, and New York Philharmonic orchestras.

Bohm's 1930s Dresden performances of Bruckner's symphonies, which have been reissued on CD by various private labels, are of particular note for the absence of the Wagnerian bombast with which these works were usually treated. Part of the explanation for Bohm's differing approach, according to some scholars, play with the fact that the Dresden orchestra members were equipped with notably old instruments, dating to Bruckner's own time, which created a sound more in keeping with the actual scores as they were known at the time, and less bombastic than newer, more "efficient" instruments, could produce. His complete recordings in Germany and Austria from 1933 through 1945 comprised a set of more than 20 long-playing records.

His early-'40s recordings with the Vienna Philharmonic are fascinating, despite their obvious sonic deficiencies. His Brahms Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 are especially compelling, although his recording of the Mozart Symphony No. 35 has long since been supplanted by his stereo version on Deutsche Grammophon. It is Bohm's modern recordings for Deutsche Grammophon that are considered the core of his legacy. This includes his recordings of Richard Strauss' music, orchestral and operatic, which have few equals -- only Rudolf Kempe and Herbert Von Karajan -- and his Beethoven, Mozart, Bruckner and Schubert are also considered to be among the finest available. His performances are noted for their carefully nuanced playing, without the bombast of Von Karajan's interpretations. ~ Bruce Eder