Opera no 151
Strauss (R): Die Frau Ohne Schatten
Soloists
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
Georg Solti
Richard Strauss is a composer I struggle with. There are some wonderful moments in his music - he was particularly good at openings - but I find a lot of it is manufactured by the yard and is almost musical wallpaper. Sometimes his harmonic language, with the moving up the keys a step at a time, is almost nauseous - yet at the same time his is capable of moments of pure bliss, such as in the four last songs. Last year I included Daphne in my 365 project and it ended up in the list of works I never wanted to hear again! https://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/2025/09/strauss-daphne.html
I wanted to give Strauss another good airing in this project so I chose this opera, which many commentators rank as his finest work. It is a very large scale work lasting well over three hours and uses an enormous orchestra and complex vocal resources. I made sure that I gave it my full attention - I listened on headphones following the music with the full score and listened to an act at a time to ensure that I came fresh to the music each time.
I was left with a very mixed reaction. There were some tremendous ensembles here with the full vocal and orchestral forces driving the music forward in a quite extraordinary way, Equally there were some moments of pure repose. The orchestration was constantly inventive - Strauss uses all of the resources at his disposal including parts for 2 celestas, 2 harps, a huge variety of percussion instruments and even a glass harmonica. These are often used in the most delicate and imaginative way.
But at other times I found the music very hard to take. Page after page seems to go nowhere, and there was far too many times where the singers were almost shouting at the top of their voices it what seemed to me to be be an incoherent way. The Emperor is played by a solo tenor (on this recording Placido Domingo): this is a very odd part. He comes on only a few times - sings at the top of his voice in very ungrateful music and then disappears. But then Strauss will give the soprano the most meltingly beautiful phrases to sing almost out of nowhere.
The harmonic language is complex and, as I have alluded to above, can be quite difficult or ever off putting. But again sometimes Strauss pulls of the most gorgeous effects, often with very simple harmonic with just a touch of chromatic inflection.
There is no doubt that the work is something of a monster. The story, which is essentially a fairy tale, is almost impossible to follow and puts great demands on the staging - what other operas includes a chorus of unborn children! The orchestral forces are huge - you suddenly find Strauss calling for 6 onstage trombones or an organ just for a single effect -and the textures are often extremely complex in a way that is typical of Strauss’ orchestral writing - you sense that he simple loved the physical act of filling a page with music.
I’m glad that I listened to this properly - I can’t imagine that I will want to listen to it again very often but is was an intriguing experience - it certainly will not go on the list of the worst operas in this project.
