Eliette von Karajan

Eliette von Karajan (née Mouret; born 13 August 1932) is a former French fashion model, first discovered by Christian Dior when she was 18. She is also known as the wife of conductor Herbert von Karajan. As a widow, she is a prominent patron of the arts and a promoter of her deceased husband's artistic legacy. She has established several artistic foundations and institutes. Von Karajan served as president of the Karajan Foundation Salzburg Easter Festival until 2020. Since then, she has served as honorary president.

Life Provence and early years Eliette Mouret was born in Mollans-sur-Ouvèze, where her parents, both teachers, owned a holiday home. She was reportedly seventeen at the time, though according to one biographer, "like many very beautiful women ... [she] was seventeen for an awfully long time". On this occasion, the smell of frying fish triggered her recurrent seasickness, and she had to be escorted ashore; Herbert von Karajan volunteered for the task. In 1955, they met up again in London, by which time she had become obsessed with the maestro. The designated godparents of Isabel and Arabella Karajan were, respectively, the Vienna Philharmonic and Berlin Philharmonic orchestras.

Working marriage

Life was not all roses ... Endless flights, trips to the hair-dressers, in high-heels all day, photographers everywhere ... Sometimes it was much too much ... then I protested too. Thank God I had the temperament. Sometimes too much. Then the coffee cups flew. Often I'd already packed my bags. And then he'd come and ask, 'What's with the suitcase?' Took me in his arms and everything was good again.

Between concerts, Karajan attended her husband's orchestral rehearsals. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Helmut Schmidt, Marc Chagall, and the actress Romy Schneider, with whom Eliette supposedly liked to flirt. However, relations cooled after Schneider, while staying as a house guest, used lipstick to scrawl graffiti all over the large mirror in the bathroom. It was "very awkward for my staff", Eliette later recalled.

Painting

It was at the widow's instigation that in 1995 the "Herbert von Karajan Center" was set up in Vienna, across the road from the "Staatsoper". It accommodated a comprehensive archive of Herbert von Karajan's many audio and video recordings. The centre closed in 2006. Eliette was disappointed by the commercialisation of the Karajan Center.

It was no coincidence that the closure of the Karajan Center opposite the Vienna State Opera followed shortly after the opening, in December 2005, of the Eliette and Herbert von Karajan Institute. In the longer term, the ambition was for the institute to celebrate and to make more widely known Herbert's achievements, along with the associated elements of his character, as interpreter, artist, promoter of talent and excellence, educator and entrepreneur-artist. the sculptor Rachel Whiteread in 1996, the German artist in 1997 and the Graubünden singer-lyricist Corin Curschellas in 2003.

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