(Salzburg, Austria) Richard Strauss was never one for short-winded solutions.
Take his opera Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow). Hugo von Hofmannsthal's libretto winds itself around a fanastical tale of an Empress, formerly a gazelle who after being caught by the Emperor turns into said monarch. Yet, she has no shadow, i.e., she is unable to bear children. Three hours and twenty-four minutes later, after much see-sawing back and forth, we've got our happy-end, complete with a patented peroration, a paean to the Unborn, in which Strauss tries to outdo Strauss.
Pity that director Christof Loy and set designer Johannes Leiacker's solution to staging this opera in Salzburg's Grosses Festspielhaus was a total cop out. Loy proved himself as Der Regisseur ohne Schatten. The entire tale, all three acts worth, was set in a rehearsal hall-recording studio with some sumptuous Salzburg-like trimmings. No imperial gardens, no dyer's house, no underground vault, no kids jumping out of a frying pan, and no golden waterfall. The singers, dressed in Ursula Renzenbrink's early twentieth century duds, came on to the rehearsal stage, placed their music on the stands, and sang. Sure, there was some acting, and some funny stuff with an axe. There was an audience too, er, it was actually the chorus who came on and sang on the risers. Yes, there were some young'uns in Act 2, though the lad who came on in imitation of the adult director in Act I was late in his cue for "activating" the red recording light. The final scene conjured up an Austrian Christmas or New Year's concert, complete with Christmas tree, a boy's choir (actually the Salzburg Festival Children's Choir), and four soloists in front of a row of spectators. Gemütlich.
Thank goodness there were much better things on stage. Anne Schwanewilms triumphed as the Empress. Stephen Gould turned in a strong performance as the Emperor. So too, Wolfgang Koch as Barak. As the Wife, Evelyn Herlitzius's high notes in Act 3 had a bit too much spread at times, though she had a chesty low F in Act 1. Her low notes were pretty much matched by Michaela Schuster as the Nurse. There were numerous other roles, all of which were well sung.
In the pit, Christian Thielemann led the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna State Opera Chorus in a masterful performance. After the final curtain, the performers were showered with ten minutes of applause from the sold out house (tickets for this performance ranged from €22 to €370).
Tomorrow is a national holiday in Austria. However, the Salzburg Festival knows nothing about this. So, in the morning it's Muti's, er, Verdi's Requiem, then in the afternoon, a double-header concert version of Stravinsky's Le Rossignol and Tchaikovsky's Iolanta with Canadian-American bass-baritone John Relyea singing opposite La Netrebko, followed in the evening by Mozart's Così fan tutte with Canadian mezzo Michèle Losier as Dorabella. That should be some national holiday.
Photo by Leonard Turnevicius: The leads in Strauss's Die Frau ohne Schatten.
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