There are few living conductors who can equal Christian Thielemann when it comes to the music of Richard Strauss, and even fewer who can venture with such assurance beyond the canonical masterpieces; his participation in the new production of Die schweigsame Frau at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden – which had only a handful of performances at the tail end of last season, but returned this month for a longer run – was already enough to make it a noteworthy event. The fact that it could also boast a tremendous central performance from Peter Rose (for whom the role of Morosus seemed tailor-made), a strong supporting cast, and a lively, modernised staging resulted in an evening to delight both casual opera-goers and dedicated fans of late-period Strauss in equal measure.
If lofty mythological themes inspired Strauss to create his most sublime music, his relationship with comedy was more problematic: while Rosenkavalier’s fine balance owes much to the humanity of von Hofmannsthal, Intermezzo (written without von Hofmannsthal’s participation) reveals an unpleasant caustic streak. After von Hofmannsthal’s death in 1929 Strauss continued his pursuit of domestic comedy with Stefan Zweig; but while the characters in Zweig’s libretto are considerably more sympathetic than their counterparts in Ben Jonson’s Epicœne, on which the story is very loosely based, the opera at times seems like the comeuppance of Baron Ochs expanded to full-opera length, an elaborate farce in which the brilliance of its execution can’t quite disguise its undercurrents of cruelty. But while the Baron most certainly deserves the humiliations heaped upon him, Sir Morosus does not; and despite the beauty of its final monologue, Die schweigsame Frau can and often does leave a bitter aftertaste.
The fact that the opera never quite resolves itself in a convincing or satisfying way may explain why it has never attained the popularity of Strauss’ earlier works. It nonetheless contains enough great music and enough comedic potential to make for a thoroughly engaging evening if given the right treatment. The staging, directed by Jan Philipp Gloger, added a stylish veneer of present-day relatability without altering the basic thrust of the narrative. The house of Morosus was transformed into the familiar surroundings of a Berlin Altbau, where complaints of excessive noise were perhaps even more relevant than in Jonson’s London. Henry’s travelling operatic troupe were given a twenty-first century makeover, but beneath the garish costumes – designed solely to stand out against the bourgeois blandness of Morosus’ flat – they remained fairly tame, threatening only to someone who had never ridden the U-Bahn after nine in the evening.
Strauss: Die schweigsame Frau. Christian Thielemann, conductor. Jan Philipp Gloger, director. Berlín, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, mayo de 2025. © 2026 by Bernd Uhlig / Staatsoper Berlin.
The staging did have its own social argument of sorts: the overture was accompanied by a video montage of an online flat search, highlighting the high rents and substandard amenities of the Berlin rental market (if the production team thinks Berlin is bad, wait until they discover Hamburg or Munich, let alone Paris or London). During the intervals, a series of facts and figures were projected onto the curtain, all supposedly drawn from newspapers and magazines and mostly concerned with the living conditions of elderly single people: ‘loneliness is as unhealthy as smoking fifteen cigarettes per day’, said one, apparently unaware of the fact that you’re never alone with a cigarette; ‘old single people tend to live in flats larger than they need, but won’t downsize due to the higher cost of renting a smaller flat in the current market’ said another.
Although these points were not addressed directly in the staging itself, the argument was obvious enough: the theatre troupe, by taking over Morosus’ flat, were not merely solving the ‘problem’ of too many elderly people taking up too much of Berlin’s habitable square metres, but were even doing Morosus a favour by bringing some gaiety into his otherwise joyless existence. It was, in addition to being deeply insensitive to the elderly and apparently ignorant of the fact that some people actually enjoy solitude, as preposterous an argument as has ever been put forth on an operatic stage, and its logical conclusion smacked more of a Logan’s Run style fascism than the harmless socialism it seemed to think it was proposing. Fortunately the staging had the good sense to leave its muddled social pronouncements firmly in the background, devoting itself instead to creating a series of lightly-handled comic scenes that kept the story moving at a reasonable pace.
The staging was, in any event, secondary to the wealth of musical performances. As Sir Morosus, the opera’s unlikely protagonist, Peter Rose was close to ideal in every way. After a commanding first appearance, silencing the bickering of the barber and housekeeper, Mr Rose wasted no time demonstrating the full range of his capabilities: his anger at the incessant sounding of the church bells – supported by equally turbulent playing from the orchestra – was perhaps the highlight of the first act, but the irritability melted away quickly during the following monologue, in which his desire for the imagined comforts of married life was rendered with immense tenderness.
Yet the first act was only the beginning: in the second and third acts, Mr Rose managed to occupy the centre of the escalating madness with grace and composure, while maintaining enough strength to bring the evening to an unexpectedly moving conclusion with a magnificently serene reading of the wonderful final monologue. In addition to his vocal strengths, Mr Rose was able to weave the gruffness and vulnerabilities of Morosus into a richly sympathetic whole; such was his command of the stage that the evening’s least compelling scenes were invariably those in which he was absent.
Strauss: Die schweigsame Frau. Christian Thielemann, conductor. Jan Philipp Gloger, director. Berlín, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, mayo de 2025. © 2026 by Bernd Uhlig / Staatsoper Berlin.
In terms of stage charisma, the only person who came close to matching Mr Rose’s Morosus was the housekeeper of Evelyn Herlitzius, who, despite having a comparably small role, managed to make her presence felt throughout the evening. While the character can be annoying in lesser hands, one instead wished that Strauss had written more for her. Indeed the female voice, which inspired so much of Strauss’ finest music, is marginally less prominent than in other operas. But if Aminta, the principal soprano role, doesn’t really become a figure in the drama until midway through the second act, Brenda Rae was quick to establish her as a major force. Although her explosion of feigned shrewishness in the second act was duly arresting, and her wilful singing of arias at the beginning was possessed of an infectious exuberance, it was the quiet piety of her introductory scenes as ‘Timidia’ – and her later expressions of bad conscience – that left the greater impression.
Siyabonga Maqungo provided the evening with an excellent Henry: whether rescuing his uncle from ‘Timidia’ or reassuring Aminta of his devotion, his clarity of tone and sincerity of delivery suggested a character of unquestionable goodness. And while the staging seemed somewhat uncertain in its treatment of Schneidebart – who, in keeping with the updated setting, had been transformed into Morosus’ personal physiotherapist – Samuel Hasselhorn nonetheless delivered an energetic, engaging performance that found a credible path between scheming for personal gain and genuine concern for the wellbeing of his friend. Although the character can get somewhat lost in the comic insanity of the latter acts, Mr Hasselhorn ensured that he remained a presence throughout.
Strauss: Die schweigsame Frau. Christian Thielemann, conductor. Jan Philipp Gloger, director. Berlín, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, mayo de 2025. © 2026 by Bernd Uhlig / Staatsoper Berlin.
If the score of Die schweigsame Frau is not generally greeted with the reverence accorded to, say, Ariadne (or the other Frau), Christian Thielemann wasted no opportunity to highlight its myriad virtues. The overture, played with tremendous vigour, was an overview of the opera in miniature, moving effortlessly from genial to stormy and back again. The opera itself was a master-class in carefully paced action punctuated by moments of exceptional beauty. While Strauss clearly relished the scenes of chaos – the intrusion of the naval company and the neighbours into the wedding party was played with a lusty intensity that concealed its careful preparation – it was the passages of relative calm that yielded the evening’s most memorable moments. Mr Thielemann’s ability to sculpt rapture from tranquillity elevated both Aminta’s chaste monologue about the quiet life in the second act and Henry’s ecstatic affirmation of familial devotion in the third; he also made a strong case that the orchestral interlude and concluding bars of Act 2 should be counted among the finer passages of late-period Strauss.
For anyone who remains ambivalent about the qualities of Die schweigsame Frau – and who has never been fully convinced by the various available recordings – the new production at the Staatsoper was a notable work of outreach. The combination of a great orchestra, a great Morosus, and a well-told staging may not, in the end, have uncovered a masterpiece in hiding, but it certainly resulted in an entertainment of the very highest order. One can only hope that Mr Thielemann will one day turn his attention to Die Liebe der Danae – that other unjustly-neglected late opera – where the musical rewards may prove even greater.
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