She married the Austrian conductor Clemens Krauss in Frankfurt during her time there. The soprano then appeared at the Vienna Volksoper (1924–26), Frankfurt Opera (1926–30), Vienna State Opera (1930–35), Berlin State Opera (1935–37), and Bavarian State Opera(1937–44). Following training in Vienna, she made her operatic debut in Zagreb (Agram), as Charlotte in Massenet’s Werther, in 1922. Viorica Ursuleac was born the daughter of a Greek Orthodox archdeacon, in Chernivtsi, which is now in Ukraine. The artist who originated the role of the Countess was Viorica Ursuleac (Ma– October 22,1985), a Romanian operatic soprano. The apex of the score is the final scene, a combination of a rapturous orchestral passage (the “Moonlight Music”) followed by the countess’s monologue, widely considered a supreme example of Strauss’s many superb showcases for the soprano voice. In keeping with the general tone of Capriccio, the score is refined and more complex than it appears on first hearing. Zweig’s Jewish background made further collaboration impossible, and the composer turned to his friend and colleague Clemens Krauss (1893–1954), an Austrian impresario and conductor who also led Capriccio’s premiere performance. The idea for Capriccio originated with Stefan Zweig, an Austrian writer of novels, plays, and non-fiction who had written the libretto to Strauss’s Die Schweigsame Frau (1935). After two early failures, Salome (1905) caused a theatrical sensation, and the balance of his long career was largely dedicated to the stage, with most of his works through the 1920s written in collaboration with Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Richard Strauss (1864–1949) composed an impressive body of orchestral works and songs before turning to opera. However, the issues at hand-the role of music in opera, the need for plausible drama, the function of dance, design, and stagecraft-are not specific to that era. (Indeed, the air of luxury is an integral aspect of the story.) The opera was originally set in the second half of the 18th century, a time when debates about the merits of various genres of music theater triggered elaborate wars of words in and around the French capital. The setting Strauss imagined his work set at a chateau near Paris, with its own private theater. While undeniably more subtle than Strauss’s earlier operas, that very subtlety becomes Capriccio’s most outstanding and powerful feature. The opera’s steadfast insistence on the importance of aesthetics and courtly love pleads for the continued celebration of beauty itself in a violent, ugly world. Considered in this context, its seeming “triviality” assumes a poignant significance (the word “trivial” appears in the countess’s last line in the libretto, posed as a question). Furthermore, it is impossible to experience this opera without taking into account the circumstances of its composition and premiere in wartime Germany. There is little action in any conventional sense, but there is great insight and plenty of beauty. The idea of “words versus music” goes all the way back to baroque opera, and this theme had also served as the basis for a short opera by Antonio Salieri, performed in Vienna in 1786, and a whiff of nostalgia for a lost (if imaginary) era of refinement permeates Capriccio. This light framework provides many opportunities for witty interactions and virtuoso musical touches. The ending is unknown: the countess must choose it. The conversation moves to opera as the consummation of all the arts, and it is decided that the poet and the musician should write one together-with the day’s events as its subject. Implicit in her verdict is another issue: which one of them will she take as her lover? Surrounding this triangle are other characters with various degrees of investment in the same question: the countess’s brother, an amateur actor who prefers erotic action to romantic theory a celebrated actress and a theater director with a strong sense of the practical (a combination of a Straussian alter ego and an affectionate caricature of the great director Max Reinhardt). A poet and a musician submit their respective creations to a young countess and ask her to decide. It was Richard Strauss’s final opera, and it is a sophisticated “conversation piece for music” (the work’s actual subtitle) centering on the age-old question of whether words or music take precedence in theater and in the arts in general. Capriccio: Mondscheinmusik und Letze SzeneĬapriccio had its premiere at the Munich, National Theater, 1942.
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