With all the brouhaha surrounding Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein nose, it’s not even on most people’s radar yet that John Malkovitch is playing Romanian maestro Sergiu Celibidache. I’m not sure there’s enough make-up in the world to effect that transformation!

Celibidache, one-time conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, gained notoriety for his uncompromising pursuit of “the transcendent moment,” his exhaustive rehearsals, and his refusal to record.

Of course, the market is flooded with Celibidache recordings, many of them from his years in Munich, but these are all byproducts of actual live concerts. Few of them could be described as pedestrian.

Equally, few would be described as “definitive.” When Celibidache was “on,” he could be like nobody else; but when he was “off” – again, he could be like nobody else.

How do you even say his name? Repeat after me: Cheh-lee-bee-DAH-keh.

In June, Malkovich conducted an orchestra before 4000 extras in Bucharest, reenacting a concert that Celibidache gave in Philadelphia with the Munich Philharmonic in 1989. No word yet as to whether or not he’ll be donning a Shemp Howard wig.

“The Yellow Tie,” directed by Serge Ioan Celibidache, the conductor’s son, costars Miranda Richardson and Sean Bean. The film is expected to be released next year.

On Anton Bruckner’s birthday, Celi conducts the Symphony No. 7

Celi documentary, “The Garden of Celibidache”

Malkovich interviewed on Romanian television

Celibidache has a fever, and the only prescription is more viola!