None of Strauss' operas are without problems, save Capriccio, his last and finest opera. Salome and Elektra are both wonderful of course, Der Rosenkavalier top drawer Strauss (it's just far too big, grandiose and Wagnerian for its Mozartian subject!), Die Frau Ohne Schatten his deeply flawed and highly enjoyable attempt at opera on a truly Wagnerian scale, Ariadne a brilliant and beautiful comedy with fine singing parts and then Capriccio which ushered in the wonderful late works, glowing, autumnal, reconciliatory, a golden farewell to the medium.
But what to make of the rest? Apart from the two early works, Die Liebe der Danae, Die Schwiegsame Frau, Intermezzo, Arabella, Daphne, Die Agyptische Helena, Friedenstag - all are not up to the standard of the works above. Arabella and Daphne are beautiful paens to the soprano voice though both contain huge langours - especially Daphne where the action crawls along at snails pace - the beauty of the final scene almost makes up for it. Intermezzo is steadfastly second rate, bland, undifferentiated - probably deliberately so to match the domestic mundanity of the situation - Strauss is an absolute master of this, but its in Capriccio that it reaches its zenith and perfect realisation. Friedenstag is just weird and one feels that Strauss is out of his comfort zone. Die Liebe der Danae, Die Schwiegsame Frau, Die Agyptische Helena all contain lovely music (the second act of Helena, The third act of Danae) but it's difficult to imagine these ever being convincingly realised on stage because the music for so much of them is really dull and the dramatic situations leave much to be desired.
What are people's experiences with this second category? Do you think my division of his operas in this way is fair? I always want to love Strauss' music, because the good stuff is so good. But Strauss makes it so hard sometimes - huge swathes of the music are second or third rate, truly horrible note-spinning. Are the flashes of brilliance worth the toil and pain of the bulk they carry with them?
Quote from: Guido on March 12, 2010, 02:27:58 AM
None of Strauss' operas are without problems, save Cappriccio, his last and finest opera.
I love
Capriccio, but "his finest opera"? Seriously? Give me
Salome,
Elektra,
Ariadne, or
Frosh any day.
Quote from: Wendell_E on March 12, 2010, 03:00:27 AM
I love Capriccio, but "his finest opera"? Seriously? Give me Salome, Elektra, Ariadne, or Frosh any day.
I do think that depends on which Strauss you prefer. With my preference for his late works, I well understand the preference for Capriccio, though the move into the "objective" territory of "finest" is always wont to open a can of worms.
Ok, not really the point of this thread, but I should have realised that this would be a contentious point - it's more an overview of Strauss according to me I guess! Anyway, instead of my incoherent ramblings - here's a wonderful article written by Robin Holloway that sums up my feelings completely - reading it was a revelation because it made me aware myself of exactly why I thought it was Strauss' finest opera! (Something I always just 'felt' before but didn't voice because maybe my ears are on wrong):
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=b0KonLPQndcC&lpg=PP1&ots=XadbLv1g3p&dq=holloway%20on%20music&pg=PA142#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Holloway is extremely insightful with regards to Strauss - I almost always agree with his judgements on this wonderful composer.
I've always adored the most popular Strauss operas, but having gotten to know the less familiar and supposedly inferior ones from recordings in recent years,
I'm convinced that they are among the most underrated of operas by any composer.
I recently took out the recording of his second opera Feuersnot conducted by Heinz Fricke of the Washington opera, with Julia Varady and Bernd Weikl from my library.
It's great fun, and I recommend this recording highly. It's an absolute charmer, and filled with inside jokes and quotations from Waner.
I fell in love with Die Schweigsame Frau back in the 80s on LP from the Janowski/Dresden EMI recording. If Ariadne and Der Rosenkavalier are neo-mozartian, this delightful comic opera is Strauss's equivalent of a Rossinian comic opera . It ought to be done more often, and I hope the Met will get around to it before long.
I got familar with Die Agyptische Helena from the GwynethJones/Dorati recording,and have become very fond of it. Having heard recordings of all 15 Strauss operas, I am convinced that none of them should be dismissed out of hand.
Daphne is a wonderful work, the story may be somewhat silly (it is supposed to be) but there is some glorious music.
This DVD edition is nicely done
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51tWx4Q2ydL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)
Salome is my favorite, it's the one I want on my plate!
Quote from: Scarpia on March 12, 2010, 07:50:27 AM
Daphne is a wonderful work, the story may be somewhat silly (it is supposed to be)[/quote]
Cryptic remark - what makes you say that?
Quote from: Guido on March 12, 2010, 01:32:50 PM
Quote from: Scarpia on March 12, 2010, 07:50:27 AM
Daphne is a wonderful work, the story may be somewhat silly (it is supposed to be)
Cryptic remark - what makes you say that?
I don't mean to be silly. What I mean is that it is not like a bad Italian opera which has a supposedly dramatic plot which is ridiculous, it has a plot that is deliberately fanciful.
Die Schweigsame Frau - an interesting score. I have just been listening to new recording of a radio broadcast of Die Schweigsame Frau with Franz Hawlata and Diana Damrau in the main roles (Morosus and Aminta) - there was a new production this summer in Munich which everyone seemed to love. It's good to finally hear it in decentish modern sound (I also have Bohm which has a huge amount of stage noise and general hiss and distortion), and confirms my admiration (not quite love) for this warm little score. I think I mostly like it because it's another step on the way towards Capriccio - the lightness of the Ariadne Prologue is sometimes achieved again, the orchestration is charming and inventive if more heavy handed than Capriccio, the soft tints and hues of that supreme masterpiece occasionally peeking through. None of it is that memorable, but there are portions that are beautiful enough and it's possibly more engaging than Arabella (excepting that score's most famous (and most knowingly kitsch) bits) or Daphne (excepting the final scene) or Danae I think.
The music is mostly secondary to the plot and action, but there are three wonderful arias for bass. The first is right near the beginning - Morosos complaining about clocks - the orchestration here is superb.
Second, is an aria about old age in the second act, and I think it is in its own small way as fine as die Marschallin's (ok, not really, but it's very moving). Amazingly it's half cut in the new radio broadcast, and completely cut in the Bohm! Seems to me this is Strauss the old man talking (he would have been around 70 when he wrote it) - it's maybe the best section of the opera.
And I love that final bass aria too, slight though it is - it's hinted at several times before in the score, but finally Strauss lets there be a passage of pure lyricism and warmth. Strauss is the master of operatic endings.
Damrau has a hugely wobbly vibrato for such a light voice and Hawlata is mostly completely past his prime (lots of this score is just shouted - one yearns for Matti Salminen!) so the new broadcast is hardly ideal, but still good to hear.
Quote from: Guido on March 12, 2010, 02:27:58 AM
Die Frau Ohne Schatten is deeply flawed and highly enjoyable attempt at opera on a truly Wagnerian scale.
I don't agree that Die Frau Ohne Schatten is deeply flawed. I have listened to it or watched it (video and live at the Met) over 100 times and I get more fond of the opera each time. I have no problem with the libretto and the music is glorious.
JS
Quote from: johnshade on September 22, 2010, 04:05:29 AM
I don't agree that Die Frau Ohne Schatten is deeply flawed. I have listened to it or watched it (video and live at the Met) over 100 times and I get more fond of the opera each time. I have no problem with the libretto and the music is glorious.
JS
There are many wonderful parts, but as a whole it doesn't work I think - for many reasons.
I think it's a case of people being impressed by the intent and what it hopes to achieve rather than what it actually is - the conceit is Strauss' most lavish and grandest orchestral score with Hofsmannthal's finest and deepest libretto. But actually, the musical inspiration flags all over the place, not because Strauss didn't understand the libretto, but because it didn't speak to him - as he said himself to Hofmannsthal in one of his letters he responded best and most honestly to parody and kitsch - he can't exalt like Wagner. Whilst he was writing the score he wrote to Hofmannsthal that his heart wasn't truly in it, and as a result much of the opera is cold, expertly constructed note spinning...
This article completely summarises my feelings (starting page 138), and it's wonderfully written:
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=b0KonLPQndcC&printsec=frontcover&dq=essays+and+diversions+holloway&source=bl&ots=Xaf8IB-j3s&sig=-qhShEkrVqFtqQrw_RaBP6rdVLE&hl=en&ei=eAuaTK6TGJWSjAfxi9kF&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CCYQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=frau%20ohne&f=false
Thanks for the link to the Holloway book, Guido - I had always meant to read it but the price had put me off. I used to read his articles in The Spectator. You notice, though, that he has good words to say about Intermezzo - my feelings exactly. It has some wonderful orchestral interludes (the most lyrical one exists in one of Beecham's warmest and most heartfelt recorded interpretations), and the stage action itself can do without "inspired music", being well-set ironic farce. There is a very good video with Felicity Lott in English demonstrating this work's viability. DFoS just doesn't work on stage IMO. I find a certain dramatic resemblance between Intermezzo and Schoenberg's Von heute auf morgen, btw, another work not exactly brimming over with tunes.
Quote from: mjwal on September 22, 2010, 08:23:37 AM
Thanks for the link to the Holloway book, Guido - I had always meant to read it but the price had put me off. I used to read his articles in The Spectator. You notice, though, that he has good words to say about Intermezzo - my feelings exactly. It has some wonderful orchestral interludes (the most lyrical one exists in one of Beecham's warmest and most heartfelt recorded interpretations), and the stage action itself can do without "inspired music", being well-set ironic farce. There is a very good video with Felicity Lott in English demonstrating this work's viability. DFoS just doesn't work on stage IMO. I find a certain dramatic resemblance between Intermezzo and Schoenberg's Von heute auf morgen, btw, another work not exactly brimming over with tunes.
Glad you enjoyed it - he's so wonderful when writing about Strauss I always think! I cannot recommend the book highly enough - it's the best general book on music I've ever read.
Yes Intermezzo is a weird one - as I said in my original post, it's steadfastly second rate, and deliberately so - it matches the commonplace subject matter perfectly and is completely fit for purpose. Be that as it may, the music (excepting the interludes as you say - the Intermezzos as it were!) is still second rate compared to the other favourites I mentioned - even if you make banality a virtue, it remains banality! I have watched that Lott/Glyndebourne production and found it very hard to get all the way through. Lott is almost comically English here - something like a disagreeable Mary Poppins! Don't know the Schoenberg - will look out for it.
More on Die Frau ohne Schatten
Hofmannsthal created a libretto of such symbolic and textual complexity that he himself had trouble keeping it straight -- in fact, he wrote a concurrent prose version that allowed him to develop the themes more fully; this prose explanation sometimes accompanies the opera in performance to assist audiences. The correspondence between the librettist and Strauss shows that the composer, at times, often did not "get it" either.
The richness and complexity of Hofmannsthal's writing inspired Strauss to compose one of his densest scores, packed with intricate leitmotifs and exploiting his orchestrational talents to the fullest. In fact, it is perhaps only Strauss' ability to exploit the colors and textures of the orchestra that prevents Hofmannsthal's tale from lapsing into silliness; how many composers can pull off a chorus of unborn children that sings through the mouths of fish frying in a pan without straying into unintentional comedy?
JS
Quote from: johnshade on September 22, 2010, 07:54:32 PM
More on Die Frau ohne Schatten
Hofmannsthal created a libretto of such symbolic and textual complexity that he himself had trouble keeping it straight -- in fact, he wrote a concurrent prose version that allowed him to develop the themes more fully; this prose explanation sometimes accompanies the opera in performance to assist audiences. The correspondence between the librettist and Strauss shows that the composer, at times, often did not "get it" either.
The richness and complexity of Hofmannsthal's writing inspired Strauss to compose one of his densest scores, packed with intricate leitmotifs and exploiting his orchestrational talents to the fullest. In fact, it is perhaps only Strauss' ability to exploit the colors and textures of the orchestra that prevents Hofmannsthal's tale from lapsing into silliness; how many composers can pull off a chorus of unborn children that sings through the mouths of fish frying in a pan without straying into unintentional comedy?
JS
His talent for onomatopoeia is never in question - he is the greatest composer in history at this. The problem was that if he couldn't get into the characters and situation he could not write great music - he repeatedly admitted this and acknowledging his faults and limitations was one of his most touching personality traits. See for instance - in Salome the music he writes for the Jews - he has nothing in common with and no interest in the piety expressed by them - their music is completely uninspired. But give him a prurient teen obsessed with an unattainable man and you get, in the final stretch of that same opera, one of the most inspired scenas for soprano and orchestra ever written.
He was perfectly capable of writing with the same complexity when he was not directly inspired, but as he says - there's a whiff of academia and note spinning to it which no bellows can fan into a fire.
As Holloway rightly points out with the Libretto of FrOSch - the problem with Hofmannsthal's libretto here is not that it is so complicated and loaded with symbolism - its that the symbolism doesn't resonate with us like it does in say, Wagner's Ring.
I agree with you about DFoS, Guido - H.v.H. got carried away by Goethean aspirations in his later work and Strauss couldn't really deal with all that symbolic baggage - the non-noble human bits, the Nurse, Barak & his wife are often very good. We must agree to differ about Intermezzo though. I watched the video of the production with Lott again the other night and found it absolutely delightful and think it is possibly more amusingly post-modern in English, though I usually hate opera sung in English. There are amazing passages where the orchestra sounds as if it were sort of melting like some surrealist clock, and to me the whole popular music side of it is brilliant and came over so well with all those art deco etc 20s illustrations. And Strauss plays so well upon the registers of his own earlier operas here, transferred to what you call a "banal" context - but so what? Art must be about banality in an age characterised above all by that quality. Does anyone know that Keilberth recording? I want to hear this in German now. The recording with Popp is too expensive at present, but anyway I doubt she could do as much with her voice to suggest Christine's/Pauline's needy shrewishness.
Quote from: mjwal on September 23, 2010, 10:17:46 AM
I agree with you about DFoS, Guido - H.v.H. got carried away by Goethean aspirations in his later work and Strauss couldn't really deal with all that symbolic baggage - the non-noble human bits, the Nurse, Barak & his wife are often very good. We must agree to differ about Intermezzo though. I watched the video of the production with Lott again the other night and found it absolutely delightful and think it is possibly more amusingly post-modern in English, though I usually hate opera sung in English. There are amazing passages where the orchestra sounds as if it were sort of melting like some surrealist clock, and to me the whole popular music side of it is brilliant and came over so well with all those art deco etc 20s illustrations. And Strauss plays so well upon the registers of his own earlier operas here, transferred to what you call a "banal" context - but so what? Art must be about banality in an age characterised above all by that quality. Does anyone know that Keilberth recording? I want to hear this in German now. The recording with Popp is too expensive at present, but anyway I doubt she could do as much with her voice to suggest Christine's/Pauline's needy shrewishness.
More than happy to agree to disagree about that one... In general I like the "lighter" ones more - Rosenkavalier, Ariadne, Capriccio, and to a certain extent Arabella and Die Schweigsame Frau, though wouldn't be without the two expressionist blockbusters.
What about Helena - do we agree that it is one of the worst of the operas - pointless story (boring, uninvolving and again hopelessly symbolic), Strauss at the lowest ebb of his creative career - again everything consummately done in terms of technique, but this time it doesn't even have the good patches that FrOSch has to save it (aside from the wondrously effusive "
Zweite Brautnacht!") I was initially impressed by the beauty of the women's scenes (especially the bit where Helena's beauty is revealed for the first time), but on repeated listenings the score has appealed less and less, where Salome and Elektra appeal more and more. It's another case of Strauss retreating into his "Wagnerian Armour", his default when the subject doesn't affect him enough.
Quote from: Guido on March 12, 2010, 06:12:13 AM
Ok, not really the point of this thread, but I should have realised that this would be a contentious point - it's more an overview of Strauss according to me I guess! Anyway, instead of my incoherent ramblings - here's a wonderful article written by Robin Holloway that sums up my feelings completely - reading it was a revelation because it made me aware myself of exactly why I thought it was Strauss' finest opera! (Something I always just 'felt' before but didn't voice because maybe my ears are on wrong):
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=b0KonLPQndcC&lpg=PP1&ots=XadbLv1g3p&dq=holloway%20on%20music&pg=PA142#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Holloway is extremely insightful with regards to Strauss - I almost always agree with his judgements on this wonderful composer.
Very cool article! I think camps can very divided when it comes to Strauss, old/new. I think Salome is brilliant, while Elektra often sounds to me like a more extreme Tristan und Isolde. Or: "Isolde lives and goes even more cuckoo without Tristan".
Der Rosenkavalier has that unbelievable second act, but I don't like the rest of it. Der Frau Ohne Schatten was another one that I really liked in parts. As for Capriccio, I didn't like it, but to be fair the only Capriccio I ever heard was a dvd performance with a terrible transfer.
Quote from: AndyD. on September 23, 2010, 03:57:03 PM
Very cool article! I think camps can very divided when it comes to Strauss, old/new. I think Salome is brilliant, while Elektra often sounds to me like a more extreme Tristan und Isolde. Or: "Isolde lives and goes even more cuckoo without Tristan".
Der Rosenkavalier has that unbelievable second act, but I don't like the rest of it. Der Frau Ohne Schatten was another one that I really liked in parts. As for Capriccio, I didn't like it, but to be fair the only Capriccio I ever heard was a dvd performance with a terrible transfer.
I agree there's a lot of slag in Der Rosenkavalier, but what about the Marschallin's monologue at the end of act 1??! Surely one of the most beautiful and moving scenes in all opera. And the final trio and duet... The Marchallin's "Ja, Ja"... moments like this is what opera is about.
Glad you like the article - he just perfectly captures why this apparently rather "lymphatic" work is actually such a glory. Capriccio is still probably my favourite opera... though that's maybe a stupid statement to make...
Capriccio is, with Elektra and Salome, one of my favorite among Strauss operas. Daphne is amazing and not only the soprano role, we have there some of the most beautiful music for tenor that Strauss ever composed.
Die Frau ohne Schatten has very impressive moments but I don't think that the symbolism of the subject is the most adjusted to Strauss personality.
Regarding Arabella, there are moments of extraordinary beauty, in special the duo Mandryka/Arabella and the Finale, but the other characters are not very convincing (Zenka ...).