R. Strauss: Die Schweigsame Frau. (Opera And Oratorio).(Richard Strauss)(Sound Recording Review)

[] Sieden, Kilduff Runkel, Vermillion; Moll, Van der Walt, Schulte, Rauch, Kuhn, Hauptmann; Chor der Bayerischen Rundfunks, Munchner Rundfunkorchester, Steinberg. Text and translations. Koch 3-6581-2

Die Schweigsame Frau has always been one of Strauss's problem-children. Completed in 1935--with the Jewish Stefan Zweig as his often inspired, occasionally cumbersome collaborator--the comic opera first irked the Nazis, then suffered political banishment, and later confused partisan audiences who expected weightier endeavors from the great German Meister.

General familiarity with the subject, moreover, did not invariably breed contentment. The plot recalls Ben Jonson's Epicoene of 1609, which had also inspired operas by Antonio Salieri and Mark Lothar, not to mention the hand-me-down buffa incarnation everyone loves as Donizetti's Don Pasquale. Still, Strauss and Zweig's poignant semi-satire abounds in clever quotation, apt portraiture, subtle ensemble writing and, most important, gloriously convoluted yet graceful, impeccably gauged climaxes. Zweig's libretto may have done little to discourage the composer from rambling--always one of his favorite tendencies--but the rambling here is undeniably inspired.

Over the decades, the Silent Woman has held her own in the hearts and minds of connoisseurs, even though she seems to have left little lasting impact in the great opera houses of the world. The Met has yet to make her acquaintance. The most important postwar production took place in Salzburg, with the great Hans Hotter as Morosus, the old sea-captain afflicted with ...