Zurich.(Die Schweigsame Frau)

From the moment Christoph von Dohnanyi launched into the "potpourri" overture (as the composer described it) of Richard Strauss's Die Schweigsame Frau in Zurich's new production (seen Dec. 21), it was clear that this performance would be a winner. With the orchestra a honed body of perfectionists from the first horn entry, Dohnanyi whizzed his musicians through the score until it sparkled like a freshly polished jewel. The work (which clocks in at 172 minutes of music in one recording) was so cleverly cut that this performance lasted 145. This listener compared the original libretto to the one printed in the program to find out what had been left out (mostly in Act III and in choral passages). Strauss aficionados may have been horrified, but I was charmed. So often, this composer is prone to inordinate prolixity: not this time.

Jonathan Miller's productions are often overpraised by English and American critics, but his Schweigsame Frau is a masterwork of lovingly shaped, deeply probing, three-dimensional character studies. Originally labeled a "komische Oper" by Strauss and his librettist, Stefan Zweig, it was raised by Dohnanyi and Miller to the level of a conversational "musikalische Komodie" (not to be confused with American musical comedy), with spoken and sung dialogue smoothly blended in an almost Hogarthian comedy of manners. (Hogarth's engraving Marriage a la Mode served as the inspiration for the Marschallin's levee in Der Rosenkavalier, Strauss and Zweig's inspiration was also English, though of earlier vintage: Ben Jonson's Epicoene, or the Silent Woman.) With Swiss precision, Miller balanced the plot's farcical elements against its lyrical emanations and ...