Die Frau ohne Schatten review: an adaptation worthy of operatic treatment
Annilese Miskimmon, the no-nonsense artistic director of the English National Opera (ENO), hit the nail on the head when she asked: “When a composer brings me an idea for an opera, the first thing I ask is, why does this need to be made into an opera?”
Was Miskimmon stating the bleeding obvious? Well, no. It turns out that plenty of contemporary composers peddle duff ideas for operas and somehow have them produced. Take L’Amour de loin, for example, the 2000 opera in five interminable acts by the composer, Kaija Saariaho, with a French-language libretto by Amin Maalouf. I once saw a production of L’Amour de loin at New York’s Met, Mr Saariaho should never have spoilt a vaguely interesting short story by entombing it in dreary music and meandering “meaningful” sung soliloquies. In presenting an apocryphal tale of love between a couple who never met, only to have the inamorato snuff it as he heaves up on a beach at the feet of his inamorata – the production did not warrant operatic treatment. However, it has to be said; I may be unfair as I confess to only being awake for the first three hours.
It’s too bad Miskimmon was not on hand at the outset to give the idea short shrift. Now, she has moved from Nordic Scandi-noir to Coliseum-Covid-noir without any intervening period whatsoever. The poor soul. She was being interviewed on a regular ENO TV web event for patrons and sponsors and ran hangers-on (me). Miskimmon reflected on what ENO has done in covidium tribulatio – their brilliant Mozart Requiem and funky Camper Van drive in la Bohème as well as discussing post-pandemic plans:
“There’s going to be an opera about a book”. One attendee immediately speculated: “Harry Potter?”. Er, …. no. “And there’s a thrilling project …… shhhh! …which cannot speak its name…AND I KNOW WHAT IT IS!…But don’t push it. I’m not telling. I am sworn to secrecy until the time is right.” It is suffice to say that Ms. Miskimmon is fizzing with ideas, and when relaxed restrictions permit will have ENO out of the traps and running before you can spot a “Boris Bike” in the Olympic Park.
The “Miskimmon question” is uncomfortable but essential. The question has been at the centre of opera production since Jacopo Peri thought the Dafne legend would benefit from a shot of musical oomph, so staged it in Florence in 1597. Miskimoon’s point is that not any old thing works as opera. For Miskimmon, the money lies where the medium’s drama adds layers of complexity and insight that engage the audience and illuminate the plot, where the mundane can be elevated to a higher plane or where the complexity of a character’s motives better laid bare by a snarling, low mezzo growl. She is spot on about this.
This operatic concept was well understood in musical partnerships such as Mozart and his librettist, da Ponte, and Wagner and his favourite librettist…Wagner. And for the purposes of this review, the successful pairing of Richard Strauss and poet, novelist and dramatist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal.
One of the Strauss’ and von Hofmannsthal’s less frequently performed operas, Die Frau ohne Schatten, (The Woman without a Shadow) is currently screening online, on the EuroArts channel, you can watch the 2012 production at the Mariinsky Theatre here – I’ve watched three productions, and this is by far the best.
The first production I watched was courtesy of the Welsh National Opera (WNO) in Bristol, back in 1980. I was hauled from Glasgow to keep company with an opera-loving pal, whose wife considered Strauss an apostle of the devil, detested “screeching women”, and frequently made more protesting sounds from the stalls than the sopranos onstage – certainly louder.
Die Frau is based on the fairy tale Heart of Stone by the German writer, Wilhelm Hauff. At its core is the age-old trope of a lacklustre drudge doing a deal with higher powers, trading part of their humanity for a better life. Think Midas’ lust for gold; Faust, soul for pleasure; Boris Johnson, conventional hairstyle for an 80-seat majority (ok, maybe not that one).
To elaborate, Hauff’s character, the mundane charcoal burner Peter Marmot, trades his heart for riches – with a glass imp. Hofmannsthal’s riff on the idea was that the wife of humble dyer, Barak, does a deal with an otherworldly and inhumane Empress who needs her shadow to be able to bear a child. The shadow is the manifestation of Baraks’ wife’s (she has no name, making it easier for the audience to identify with her) ability to bear children. Her Emperor’s magical falcon warns the Empress that she needs to find a shadow or else her husband will be turned to stone. She descends with her nurse to the world of humans to persuade Barak’s disgruntled wife to trade. If you’re craving a full synopsis of the opera, you can read it here.
This Mariinsky production is set in two dimensions; the Empress’s mythical kingdom and her miserable father Kiekobad and Barak’s house. Unconventionally, the house is present day, packed with clapped out industrial washing machines for dying, an ancient portable TV, and a knackered Lada 4X4. Barak’s wife is a chain-smoking slattern in shabby jeans. There is much symbolism. For example, the children of Barak’s wife, who will remain unborn if she trades her shadow, are represented by fish singing in a cooking pot. The potential for these artifices to appear simply ridiculous is convincing. Deftly handled, as it is here, this passage in the opera is haunting and the pivot on which Barak’s wife’s eventual redemption hangs.
The production passes the “Miskimmon test” as it engages all the audience’s senses, making it easier to suspend a sense of reality – “immersive” would be an understatement.
Strauss’s favourite operatic work is Die Frau, which remains seldom staged because of the high casting demands – thirteen first-class voices, including five soloists – and a large-scale orchestra. Sourcing flying falcons to emperors turning to stone to six kinds signing in a frying pan all take deft staging and expensive special effects.
Strauss had a fine conceit of himself, with some justification. He was the last great conductor/composer in Richard Wagner’s tradition, a musical colossus of the first half of the 20th century. However, Strauss has been downgraded in the pantheon due to his association with the Hitler regime – he served as head of the Reichsmusikkammer (Reich Music Chamber) and composed an anthem for the 1936 Nuremberg Olympics.
But, as Michael Kennedy’s definitive biography Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Engima points out, Strauss was held at arm’s length by the Nazi regime. In insisting on using a Jewish librettist, Stefan Zweig for his opera Die schweigsame Frau, he was fired from the Reichsmusikkammer and Bayreuth, Wagner’s shrine.
Strauss was fond of pointing out that his life arced from the reign of Ludwig of Bavaria to the post-WWII Federal German Republic – he had seen it all. In his early operas – Salome and Elektra – Strauss’s compositional style veered towards atonality before turning back to tonality in Rosenkavalier – possibly my all-time favourite opera – along with Die Frau.
Salome is a historical tragedy, Elektra a psycho drama, Rosenkavalier a Mozartian comedy, Die Frau a compelling tale of mortality. It is clear that Strauss is the exemplar of an innovative composer who was determined to illuminate all aspects of the human condition and in doing so, mastered every trick of the operatic book.
Where Wagner chose to impose his operatic Gesamtkunstwerk (total artwork) on Ring Cycle audiences in Bayreuth, Strauss chose to reflect on life. If Strauss were to be punting his wares around today’s opera houses, my money is on Annelise Miskimmon beating a path to his door.