Concert Review: Call Her Madeleine

Renée Fleming returns to Strauss at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

She's not done yet: soprano Renée Fleming. Photo by Andrew Eccles.

The soprano Renée Fleming remains a legitimate superstar. So it caused particular turmoil in the operatic world last year when she announced that the performances as the Marschallin in Richard Strauss' opera Der Rosenkavalier would be her last...in that role. Last night at Carnegie Hall, Ms. Fleming returned to Strauss as another heroine, the Countess Madeleine in the composer's final opera, Capriccio.

Opera Review: Of Chickens and Eggs

Apotheosis Opera explores Richard Strauss' Capriccio.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Friendly rivals: Olivier (Wayne Hu) and Flamand (Joe Palarca) square off in Capriccio.
Photography by Steve Malinski for Apotheosis Opera.

Capriccio, the fifteenth and final opera by Richard Strauss, is usually mounted by a large company (in a too-cavernous house) as a vehicle for a star soprano who wants to add Countess Madeleine to her resumé (presumably to stand next to the Marschallin and Arabella in a gallery of elegant Strauss heroines.) On Thursday night, a scrappy new production by Apotheosis Opera  revealed depth and charm in what is too often dismissed as a supercilious and superficial work.

Happy Birthday, Herr Doktor Strauss

Today is Richard Strauss' birthday. So here's some music.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

I've loved and admired the music of Richard Strauss ever since I first saw Die Frau Ohne Schatten at the Met. I was 16--and had no idea what was going on in the opera, had no titles and didn't have a word of German. But his music communicated to me instantly and he became a deep favorite.

Concert Review: Are You Ready For the Summer?

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center wraps its spring season.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Next to big companies like the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet and New York Philharmonic, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center sometimes gets overlooked. Each year, this gathering of top-flight musicians assembles a series of concert programs devoted to little more than celebrating the beauties of works written for smaller groups of musicians, usually ranging from duo to octet. On Tuesday night, the CMS musicians gathered for the last concert of the spring 2016 season, a program of Richard Strauss, Brahms and Dvorak that explored very different periods of each composer's career.

Opera Within Opera...Within Opera?

The theater within a theater. Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Florez in Le Comte Ory.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2011 The Metropolitan Opera.

The Met's current run of Rossini's Le Comte Ory features a miniature opera theater (complete with stage-hands) in the middle of the big Met stage. The company is also reviving Richard Strauss' Capriccio at the moment, which tries to settle the case of Words v. Music in the genre. With that in mind, here's the Superconductor list of...

Five Operas...About Opera

Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
The most famous (or infamous) response to musical criticism (not to mention the longest) Wagner's lone comedy is the story of a young knight whose radical ideas shake the staid burghers of Ye Olde Nuremberg. Meistersinger was also Wagner's way of getting back at acid-tongued Vienna critic Eduard Hanslick, who championed Brahms even as he decried Wagner's so-called "music of the future."

The story goes that at a private reading of the libretto, the critic was so enraged at the appearance of a character named "Hans Licht", that he stormed out of the room. That character's name was later changed to Sixtus Beckmesser.
Read more about Die Meistersinger with the Superconductor review of a 2008 DVD from Bayreuth.

Offenbach: Les contes d'Hoffmann
The titular character of Offenbach's final opera was himself an opera composer. Hoffmann opens at a tavern next door to an opera house which is currently staging Don Giovanni. In fact, the poet spins his three tales during the performance, which features his current obsession, the singer Stella. Two of those stories involve singing: the tale of the doll Olympia (whose "Les oiseaux" never fails to bring down the house) and the doomed opera singer Antonia, who expires onstage after her final high C.
Read the Superconductor review of the Met's September performance of Les contes d'Hoffmann.

Puccini: Tosca
The title character of Puccini's drama is an opera singer. In the second act, she fulfills a professional obligation, singing a cantata underneath Scarpia's offices in the Palazzo Varnese. Tosca is enjoying a revival at the Met right now, which makes the big opera house even more "meta."
Read the Superconductor review of this season's revival of Tosca.

Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos
Fer cryin' out loud, the Prologue of Richard Strauss' opera opens backstage at an opera company, in a private theater in the home of "the Richest Man in Vienna." The harried Composer is a prominent character, along with the tenor, the prima donna, and the Dancing Master. The second half is the opera itself, replete with comic interruptions.
Read the Superconductor review of last year's Ariadne auf Naxos

Pfitzner: Palestrina
Hans Pfitzner's opera is set during the Council of Trent, and is about the crisis faced by a composer under pressure from the Catholic Church to produce music that will (theoretically) save the idea of church music and eventually pave the way for Pfitzner to write an opera called...Palestrina. You get the idea. The best moments of Pfitzner's opera come when a choir of angels descends and inspires Palestrina to get to work. It's at the end of the first act.
Read the Superconductor review of Palestrina, a 2009 DVD version made in Munich.

Opera Review: First the Words, then the Diva

Renée Fleming reigns as the Met revives Capriccio.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"Hello?" "This is the prompter." Renée Fleming as Countess Madeleine in the Met's Capriccio.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2011 The Metropolitan Opera.

The first-ever revival of Capriccio at the Metropolitan Opera bowed on Monday night. This is a connoisseur's opera, heard only when a prima donna decides to tackle its length and difficult mix of witty dialogue and all-out soprano singing. Right now, Renée Fleming is that diva. On Monday night, she reigned supreme as the Countess Madeleine.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Capriccio

This is a preview of Capriccio, with a brief summary and CD recommendations. To read the Superconductor review of the March 28 performance, click here.

The final scene from Capriccio. That's Renée Fleming at center.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2008 The Metropolitan Opera.

"Frau Gräfin, das Souper ist serviert."
Renée Fleming sings the leading role of Countess Madeleine in this rare revival of Capriccio, the 15th (and final) opera by Richard Strauss.

Capriccio was labeled as a "conversation piece for music." The subject of that conversation is the art of opera itself. Set in a big house in 18th-century France (when the musical reforms of Christoph Willibald Gluck were sweeping Europe) the work takes the form of a day-long debate about the importance of words vs. music in the construction of opera. Eventually, the participants decide to write an opera based on the day's events. It's very "meta."


The debate is framed as a romantic comedy, where the Countess is torn between the passions of the poet Olivier (Russell Braun) and the advances of the composer Flamand, (Joseph Kaiser) two best friends who are playful rivals for their hand. Also present at the house are the impresario LaRoche, (Peter Rose) the actress Clairon, (Sarah Connolly) and the prompter, M. Taupe ("Mr. Mole") who lives under the stage.

While there is only one really memorable aria in Capriccio (and it comes at the very end!) the opera is two hours of beautiful music. It is written in Strauss' late, post-Mozartean style, combining complex harmonic techniques with the galant music of the 18th century. This is an intricate score that opens with a string sextet and retains that chamber-music characteristic all the way to its final bars.








Watch Renée Fleming sing the final scene of Capriccio. And then go get tickets.

Recording Recommendations:
There are just three recordings of this opera in  the catalogue, with several more on video. But the best video of the opera, a film from Vienna starring Anna Tomowa-Sintow, has never been put out on VHS or DVD in the United States.


Philharmonia Orchestra cond. Wolfgang Sawallisch (EMI, 1957)
Countess Madeleine: Elizabeth Schwarzkopf
Flamand: Nicolai Gedda
Olivier: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
LaRoche: Hans Hotter
This was EMI producer Walter Legge's last-ditch effort to ignore the rise of stereo technology by producing opera recordings in monaural sound. Yes it's in mono. but this is a benchmark recording with a near-unbeatable cast of great opera singers in top form. Look for a young Christa Ludwig as Clairon, and the maestro himself making a rare appearance as the Servant in the final scene.

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra cond. Karl Böhm (Deutsche Grammophon, 1972)
Countess Madeleine: Gundula Janowitz
Flamand: Peter Schreier
Olivier: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
LaRoche: Karl Ridderbusch
This is a comparable reading of the opera, with an excellent Countess in Gundula Janowitz and its own all-stars (Hermann Prey, Tatiana Troyanos) in smaller roles. Fischer-Dieskau reprises his performance as Olivier. The underappreciated Karl Ridderbusch is also featured as LaRoche. If I had to choose between the two, I'd take Böhm--I like his conducting, and it's in pristine DG analog stereo