Eliette von Karajan (née Mouret; born 13 August 1932)[a] is a former French fashion model, first discovered by Christian Dior when she was 18.
[7] 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.
[11] Over the next three decades Eliette von Karajan constantly accompanied her husband, matching his program of travel and performances and attempting to shield him, as far as possible, from some of the more oppressive aspects of celebrity.
A pattern was quickly established, and, as their marriage reached a third decade, some commentators suggested that there was an element of careful choreography in the way the Karajans presented a public face of their intense partnership.
[3] The Karajans were part of a network of cerebral artist-celebrities, and their friends included Jean Cocteau,[13] Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Henri-Georges Clouzot,[14] Helmut Schmidt, Marc Chagall,[15] 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.
[9] Since she was widowed in 1989, Eliette von Karajan has reduced her travelling and for the most part simply alternated between living at the homes the couple had shared at Saint-Tropez and Anif.
However, after a visit to the "Visuals Academy" (Internationale Sommer Akademie für Bildenden Künste) set up in Switzerland by Oskar Kokoschka, she returned to her art.
While he was alive the management of his media image had been of great importance to him, and following his death Eliette adeptly applied "secrecy and speed" to ensure that his funeral did not become a press spectacle.
It was dark by the time the body of Herbert von Karajan could be buried, but the entire ceremony nevertheless remained a private family matter.
[23] Michael Dewitte, the director of the Salzburg Easter Festival, was appointed Geschäftsführer (CEO) of the institute, into which the Vienna-based Karajan Center's surviving activities were to be incorporated.
[23] It was explained that the institute, for which an annual budget of €1.5 million had been set aside, would co-ordinate concert planning in connection with the centenary of Herbert von Karajan's birth in 2008.
[23] 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.
Former award recipients who have already built significant reputations include the recorder player and conductor Maurice Steger, the mezzo-soprano Maria Riccarda Wesseling and the theatre director Felix Benesch.
High-profile recipients include the English artist-entrepreneur Damien Hirst in 1995,[24] the sculptor Rachel Whiteread in 1996,[25][26] the German artist Helmut Dorner [de] in 1997[27] and the Graubünden singer-lyricist Corin Curschellas in 2003.