Capriccio de Strauss

Experience Capriccio, the final opera by Richard Strauss, in all its glory in this production from Madrid's Teatro Real, directed by the widely acclaimed Christof Loy and conducted by Strauss aficionado Asher Fisch! First performed in Munich in 1942, this "musical conversation" in one act is based on Antonio Salieri's Prima la musica e poi le parole (First the music and then the words), which depicted the famous 18th-century quarrel between partisans of Piccinni (and the elaborate Italian opera seria) and those of Gluck (whose reforms proposed a simplified operatic form with renewed emphasis on music over complex plots and recitatives). In this comic-accented masterpiece, a stylistic break from his previous tragedies like Salomé and Elektra, Strauss enters the age-old debate: between music and poetry, which art is paramount?

The libretto by Clemens Krauss depicts a circle of artists in a castle near Paris in 1775, during rehearsals for a birthday spectacle in honor of the beautiful and recently widowed Countess Madeleine. Poet Olivier (Andrè Schuen) and musician Flamand (Norman Reinhardt), both in love with Madeleine, each attempt to win the countess's heart with a musical gift: an ode by the former and a sextet by the latter. But this love triangle quickly takes on deeper dimensions, re-staging that grand conflict for operatic supremacy between poetry and music… Which will win the day, and the countess's affections?

Photo © Javier del Real