Born in Vienna, Kleiber studied in Prague. In 1923, after conducting a stirring performance of Beethoven"s Fidelio at the Berlin State Opera, he became that institution"s music director.

He was known for his interpretations of the standard symphonic and operatic repertoire, as well as for championing new works. In 1925 he conducted the premiиre of Alban Berg"s opera, Wozzeck. When Berg"s second opera Lulu was branded Entartete Musik (degenerate music) by the Nazi Party, Kleiber, who was not Jewish and therefore could have continued his career under the Nazi regime, resigned from his post at the Berlin Opera in protest. Kleiber also repudiated his contract with La Scala in Milan in April 1939, shortly after the fascist Mussolini regime enacted its own anti-semitic legislation, saying: "...[since] la Scala is denied for Jews...both as a Christian and an artist, I can no longer cooperate."

Kleiber moved to Buenos Aires, where he worked at the Colуn Theater, becoming its music director. Here he specialized in the German operatic repertoire, particularly the works of Wagner. Through the prestige of his name, he was able to attract such luminaries to the Colуn as Emanuel List, Kirsten Flagstad, Viorica Ursuleac (in her only appearances in the Western Hemisphere) and Set Svanholm. Some of his performances from this period have been made available on CDs of varying quality, depending upon the conditions under which the original recordings took place. In 1938, Kleiber became an Argentinian citizen.

After World War II, he was offered his old position at the Berlin State Opera, which was at that time in the Russian zone of the divided city, but after discovering that the Communists were no more to his taste than the Nazis had been, he resigned without having conducted a single performance. He became a roving guest conductor, never again having any permanent post.

Kleiber made a few recordings, mainly for Decca. Two operatic recordings are still considered among the finest of these works: Mozart"s Le Nozze di Figaro (with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and Cesare Siepi as Figaro) and Richard Strauss"s Der Rosenkavalier. The former was included in Gramophone magazine"s 100 Greatest Recordings. Kleiber also composed; among his works are a Violin Concerto, Piano Concerto, orchestral variations, Capriccio for Orchestra, numerous chamber music works, piano pieces, and songs.

His son Carlos Kleiber became a renowned conductor in his own right.

In August 2010, the Colуn Theater with Daniel Barenboim was celebrated the 120th Anniversary of Erich Kleiber"s birth.

(from Wikipedia)

In 1955, Erich Kleiber wrote the Foreword of the Decca Book of Opera:

IT gives me particular pleasure to contribute this Foreword, for by doing so I can commemorate an achievement which would have seemed impossible even as recently as ten years ago. When I first an to make records, in 1924, the issue of a complete opera was a event. Not merely was the reproduction itself haphazard by the standards of today, but the records themselves were heavy, fragile, and cumbrous. Nor could even the most expensive equipment disguise the fact that the music was broken into four-minute sections. position today could not be more different. The enthusiast can make himself familiar with works that he is likely to hear in the opera se only once or twice in a lifetime. The standard of reproduction notably improved, and the records themselves have become much re easily manceuvrable. There are very obvious advantages in a em by which the finest contemporary performances are made available in every town and village in the world. The effects of this mot as yet be judged, but I am sure that historians will eventually point to the 1950s as a period in which an enlightened and exacting audience began to be formed in many areas where live performances the first quality were unknown. Each generation must recreate the sics for itself. Our own recordings will initiate a new cycle of taste-a cycle which is likely to continue for as long as music has an audience. Nor is the influence of L.P. confined to the classics. It has a role of equal importance in the propagation of new music. The manufactures have now the honour-and many of us would say the obligation-to present authoritative performances of new works. In doing they produce the musical equivalent of a "first edition" . The greater the composer, the greater the problems of interpretation. The gramophone can make it possible for a composer to pass on his wishes posterity in a manner that was denied not merely to Beethoven and Schubert, but to more than one twentieth-century master. Opera is the most complicated of all forms of music. So heterogeneous are the forces involved that hardly ever can a performance be called quite satisfactory. To this extent a fine performance on record is one of the greatest of the companies" gifts to music. The enthusiast is assured of an experience which would rarely be vouchsafed to him in the flesh " The hazards which afflict even the greatest performers are, or should have been, expunged from the final copy, and the performance is as ideal as it can humanly be. Much is gained, therefore ; and in the case of certain famous passages, the listener may be assured that he will be unlikely ever to hear them so well given in the theatre. But there is also a danger implicit in this general raising of standards. No recording can convey the nuances of stage action-and many of our best singers are also distinguished actors. Nor can it convey those intimate vibrations, those gusts and counter-gusts of sympathy and excitement, which colour every performance in the theatre and make it significantly different from those given on other occasions by the same performers But I am sure that those who take most pleasure in their records at home will find that the spell of the theatre is redoubled in consequence. The one complements, but can never replace, the other.

ERlCH KLEIBER

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Check the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ-NxgAodtc