R. STRAUSS: Die Liebe der Danae.(Review)

R. STRAUSS: Die Liebe der Danae [] Flanigan, Safer, Mesic, Jennings, Phillips, Canis; Coleman-Wright, H. Smith, W. Lewis, Hendrick; American Symphony Orchestra and Concert Chorale of New lark, Botstein. Notes, libretto and translation. Telarc CD-80570 (3)

If this extraordinary recording of Strauss's undervalued Die Liebe der Danae does not jolt opera companies into staging the work, the world will be a poorer place. Until now, the only complete Danae on disc was a radio broadcast of its official premiere, in 1952 at Salzburg, an uneven performance afflicted by muffled sound. In 1982, Santa Fe Opera gave what was billed as the "first professional performance in America"; Santa Fe repeated the opera in 1985, but major companies in the U.S. have been reluctant to follow.

As conductor Leon Botstein writes in the accompanying booklet to this enchanting Danae, "The music in this opera is not the music of a contented craftsman, relying on the conventions he himself helped to create.... Audiences that have embraced the music of Philip Glass, John Adams, Arvo Part, David Del Tredici, John Corigliano, and an even younger generation of American composers, will find old Strauss remarkably up to date."

"Old Strauss" was in his mid-seventies when he began work on Danae, shortly after the 1938 premiere of Daphne. He assumed that Danae would be his last opera (though, fortunately, Capriccio followed), and much of its third act is infused with a poignant sense of resignation and farewell that seems to reflect Strauss's own feelings. The orchestration was completed in 1940, but the composer decreed that the Danae premiere would not take place until two years after the end of the war. It was Clemens Krauss, conductor of the premiere of Capriccio in 1942, who convinced the composer to allow Danae to be given during the 1944 Salzburg Festival, though it got only as far as the dress rehearsal before it was canceled due to Goebbels's declaration of "total war." Krauss's wife, the Romanian soprano Viorica Ursuleac, creator of Strauss's Arabella, Countess Madeleine (Capriccio) and Maria (Friedenstag), was Danae at the opera's "unofficial premiere"/dress rehearsal. Before his death, Strauss promised the role of Danae to Annelies Kupper, who sang the official premiere in 1952 under Krauss's direction.

The libretto by Joseph Gregor ...