Die Frau ohne Schatten opens at the Salzburg Festival tomorrow night in a new production by Christof Loy (photos below). It will be conducted - without any cuts - by Christian Thielemann, who says it is his favourite Strauss opera.
Loy's staging was inspired by the circumstances of the opera's first recording in 1955. Its conductor, Karl Böhm, was so driven to set the work down that he persuaded his ill-assorted ensemble to work without fees, in the midst of winter, in unheated rooms. And so Loy's production begins with a young singer hired to record the part of the Empress. According to Maestro Thielemann, not even the cast are quite sure what it all means.
A local Salzburg boutique meanwhile has out-regied the Regisseur with a puzzling complementary display of Trachtenmode and hand-painted wellies.
Among other events in Salzburg there is a birthday celebration for Riccardo Muti's 70 years in life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t1RlIkX3mA
The Vienna Philarmonic had a surprise for him
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/europe/news/article_1653763.php/Maestro-Muti-turns-70-becomes-honorary-Vienna-Philharmonic-member
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/bB8xqrC3RB5/Salzburg+Festival+Riccardo+Muti+Birthday+Celebration/by-v70Igovi/Helga+Rabl+-+Stadler
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/bB8xqrC3RB5/Salzburg+Festival+Riccardo
Posted by: Bella | 28 July 2011 at 08:47 PM
There's an interview with Loy about this FROSCH over at the Salzburger Festspiele site.
http://www.salzburgerfestspiele.at/das-programm/oper/oper-detail/programid/4468/id/8511/sid/93
What's most interesting is that he doesn't seem to like or even respect the music of this opera, let alone its view of life, especially in the finale. Therefore, he has chosen to interpose his own great wisdom, to protect us from what he sees as the boorish and reactionary opulence of Strauss's conception.
Ah, how I wish I could be in Salzburg and talk to him!
Posted by: Galen Johnson | 28 July 2011 at 11:31 PM
Haha, mental! It's one way to deal with the problems of the text I guess. I'm sort of shocked that it's Thielemann's favourite. Will he be dressing up as Böhm then?!
Posted by: Capriccio blog | 29 July 2011 at 12:00 AM
The stage set is an EXACT replica of the famous Sofiensaal, where Solti recorded the Decca Ring with the VPO, and evidently Bohm the Fr'o'Sch three years earlier. It was built in 1826 as a dance hall: and burned down in 2001 (though the facade on Marxergasse still survives: the shell is being developed as flats).
Posted by: sjt | 29 July 2011 at 02:18 AM
And is that John Culshaw as Recording Producer/Geisterbote in the Control Room?
Posted by: Vecchio John | 29 July 2011 at 10:38 AM
Nope. Too fat. And rather too early. The Decca/Bohm Fr'o'Sch was produced by Victor Olof (ex-HMV) and Peter Andry (pre-EMI) Culshaw and his chums don't get going until the Knappertsbusch Wagner individual acts, and Solti's "Arabella", a bit before the Decca "Das Rheingold". Olof - right size and age - is the seated one: the very much younger Andry is presumably the one standing, looking like a naughty schoolboy. Such athenticity of approach might with profit have been extended to meeting the demands of Strauss and Hofmannsthal in the work they took the trouble to write, rather than acting as staffage for yet another of the dread Loy's dismal deconstructions...
Posted by: sjt | 30 July 2011 at 06:31 AM
Saw this live on 3Sat last night, and it worked much better than I thought it would. I have no idea how someone unfamiliar with the opera would have found it, though - the approach certainly didn't do the plot any favours.
(Is the stage as big as it seems on TV? I've only seen the venue from the outside.)
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Intermezzo replies - it's a wide stage, but this production is well-scaled to the space, so it doesn't seem oversized
Posted by: Lauren | 30 July 2011 at 10:59 PM