Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal
had drawn upon classical sources in two of their earlier collaborations, but
with Die Frau ohne Schatten they set out to construct a mythological
world entirely of their own making. The opera was arguably their greatest work,
and certainly their most ambitious, but it was not an immediate success. Only
in the decades following the second world war did it enjoy the resurgence it
deserved, but its greatest champions in those years – Kempe, Keilberth and,
especially, Karl Böhm – were also its most subtle betrayers, setting a
precedent of drastic cuts in the second and third acts that has survived into
the present century. For all that the music is now revered for the clarity of
its expression, the score itself remains prone to mistreatment.
Fortunately this is starting to change: the
centenary…
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