Thursday 3 August 2017

Fairy Tale Epic Opera

One of the great under-valued masterpieces of the operatic world is a mysterious fairy tale set in an indeterminate, ancient land and centred upon the actions of a group of (almost all) nameless symbolic characters.  The elements of the story are both timeless and very much of the time in which it was created -- a feature which it shares with all fantasy literature and art.

Die Frau ohne Schatten ("The Woman Without a Shadow") by Richard Strauss, to a libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, was co-created by the two artists, working in tandem, between 1911 and 1915-17. Its composition thus overlapped the years of the first world war.  The opera had a difficult genesis, and the first performances in 1919 were not successful.  With time, it has come to be better appreciated as a great example of the composer's musical genius.  Yet Die Frau remains relatively little-known by comparison with Salome, Elektra, and the ever-popular Der Rosenkavalier.  

There are two main reasons.  One is the work's deserved reputation for complexity and opacity of symbolism, the element which von Hofmannsthal was most at pains to incorporate.  The other is the extreme difficulty of casting, playing, singing, and staging the piece, which has confined live performances to few and very expensive productions in a handful of the world's greatest opera houses. 
The opera has no less than five demanding principal roles, all of which must be filled by singers with large, dramatic voices, able to be heard clearly over Strauss' rich, heavy orchestration.  All five have numerous passages at the highest extreme of their voice types -- even the rich mezzo-soprano role of the Nurse often rises above the stave.  

It would take far too much space to give a detailed synopsis of the complex story, so here's a quick little outline of a summary of a synopsis.  The Emperor of the Southeastern Isles has captured a beautiful gazelle which has turned into a woman, and he has married her.  But she is the daughter of the spirit world's ruler, Keikobad, and thus not human.  Keikobad (who never actually appears in the opera) has decreed that unless she becomes fully human by acquiring a shadow within 12 months, she will return to him and the Emperor will turn to stone.

The Nurse who cares for the Empress concocts a demonic plan to trick a mortal woman into selling her shadow to the Empress.  This woman, the Dyer's Wife, is out of love with her husband (Barak, the Dyer) and wishes not to bear children.  Selling her shadow will free her from having to do so.

After numerous plot complications, the two couples are put to the test in Keikobad's temple.  The Empress, in spite of seeing her husband already turning to stone, refuses to take the shadow from the Dyer's Wife, since the Dyer and his wife have reconciled.  Her refusal releases both couples, the Empress is granted a shadow, and the opera ends in full reconciliation, with the Voices of the Unborn Children having the final word.

Even with such a brief outline, it will be plain that there are many truly mysterious and indeed magical elements in the story.  Well, that is certainly within the province of fairy tales -- a realm in which this story unquestionably operates.  There's no getting around the fact that both Strauss and Hofmannsthal regarded child-bearing as the highest happiness of women.  Yes, it's a sexist concept.  And yet, the fashionable belief systems of time, place, and people are easily detected in fairy tales from all times and all cultures.  

This shouldn't mean that we set them aside on that account.  There is, after all, a great deal more to be said in this opera on such themes as patience, constancy, honesty, moderation, and caring towards others -- and by no means are these themes developed in relation only to characters of one gender.     

Richard Strauss clothed this epic tale in some of the most complex and inspired music of his entire career.  On the one hand there are moments of grandly dramatic power: the descent to earth of the Nurse and Empress in Act 1, the scene of the Empress dreaming in Act 2, the catastrophic destruction of Barak's home at the end of Act 2, the banishment of the Nurse to the realm of humanity in Act 3, and above all the climactic testing of the Empress -- a scene in which the singer, in extremity of emotion, has to erupt into a speaking voice instead of singing.  In the end, she cries out her final words:  "Ich... will... nicht!"  ("I will not!") as she refuses to take the shadow.

On  the other hand are such lyrical beauties as the temptation of the Dyer's Wife by a beautiful young man conjured up by the nurse, the watchmen's chorus at the end of Act 1, the singing of the Unborn Children in Act 2, the music which leads the Empress into the Temple in Act 3, and the final magical scene of reconciliation at the end of the opera.

The conjunction of all these elements results in perhaps the most powerful and moving of music dramas since Wagner.  I've never seen it staged, but certainly hope to at some time.  In the meantime, there are always the recordings.

The work has only been recorded in studio half a dozen times, while another dozen or so of live stage performances are available in audio or video form.  If you seek an audio recording, try to find the Decca recording with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Georg Solti.  It was the very first recording to present the 3 1/4 hour opera absolutely complete, with none of the numerous cuts traditionally used in the opera house (many of them sanctioned by the composer).  Solti waited for many years, and spread his recording sessions over the years 1989-1991, in order to have his dream cast: Julia Varady as the Empress, Hildegarde Behrens as the Dyer's Wife, Placido Domingo as the Emperor, and Jose van Dam as Barak the Dyer.  Less well known but no less powerful or dramatic is Reinhild Runkel as the demonic Nurse.  The recorded sound is also exemplary, with subtly varying sonic environments clearly delineating onstage and offstage singing and playing.  

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