The final collaboration between Strauss and
von Hofmannsthal was also, in some ways, their least consequential: if Arabella is unquestionably a cut above
the average domestic entertainment, it is also ultimately a tidily conceived
tale of true love overcoming human foibles, set against the comfortably
nostalgic backdrop of 1860s Vienna. While the excellent new production at the
Deutsche Oper couldn’t quite elevate the low key drama of the libretto to the
level of mythic universality that Strauss and von Hofmannsthal’s best work
achieves so effortlessly, it nonetheless made a strong argument that, beneath
the opera’s period details and comedic misunderstandings are elements that may seem
all the more relevant in the twenty-first century.
Director Tobias Kratzer used the stated
setting of the opera as his starting point, and the first act…
Comentarios