Background
Karajan was born on April 5, 1908 in Salzburg, Austria-Hungary, as Heribert Ritter von Karajan. He was a child prodigy at the piano. His parents were Ernst Karajan and Marta (née Kosmač).
Karajan was born on April 5, 1908 in Salzburg, Austria-Hungary, as Heribert Ritter von Karajan. He was a child prodigy at the piano. His parents were Ernst Karajan and Marta (née Kosmač).
Karajan studied at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and at the Vienna Academy of Music, where he was a conducting pupil of Franz Schalk.
Karajan made his podium debut with the Academy orchestra in 1928. In 1938 he was appointed conductor of the Berlin State Opera. From 1933 until the end of the Hitler regime, Karajan was a member of the Nazi Party. After the war he was cleared of political stigma and his career assumed international dimensions. In 1948 he conducted at the Salzburg Festival. Appointments followed rapidly. He became director of the Vienna Symphony (1948) and later succeeded Wilhelm Furtwangler as director of the Berlin Philharmonic (1954-1989). During the same period he became artistic director of the Vienna State Opera and of the Salzburg Festival. He later established his own Easter Festival at Salzburg. His famous Wagner Ring cycle there was imported to the Metropolitan Opera in 1967. Karajan died in Anif, Austria, July 16, 1989. Karajan was painstaking in establishing an accurate reflection of his work in the recordings he made with the Berlin Philharmonic. His Beethoven and Wagner cycles are significant contributions to the catalogue. He is famous for his rigorously literal interpretations and flawless execution.
Karajan read the works of Father Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle on Zen Buddhism. He became a practitioner of Zen Buddhism. He believed strongly in reincarnation and said that he would like to be reborn as an eagle so he could soar over his beloved Alps. However, on 29 June 1985, he conducted Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Coronation Mass during a Mass celebrated by St. John Paul II in St. Peter's Basilica, on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, and received Holy Communion from the hand of the Pope with his wife and daughters. By the end of his life he had reconciled with the Catholic Church, and requested a Catholic burial.
Karajan joined the Nazi Party in Salzburg on 8 April 1933. In June 1933, the Nazi Party was outlawed by the Austrian government. However, Karajan's membership was valid until 1939. In that year the former Austrian members were verified by the general office of the Nazi Party. Karajan's membership was declared invalid.
Honorary citizen of Salzburg (1968), Berlin (1973), and Vienna (1978)
On 26 July 1938, Karajan married operetta singer Elmy Holgerloef. They divorced in 1942. On 22 October 1942, at the height of the Second World War, Karajan married Anna Maria "Anita" Sauest, born Gütermann. Karajan and Anita divorced in 1958. On 6 October 1958, he married his third wife, French model Eliette Mouret; they became parents of two daughters, Isabel and Arabel.