Strauss - Capriccio, February 25, 27, March 2, 4, and 6, 2010. Royal Theatre. In German with English surtitles
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Capriccio: The Music

HEAR CAPRICCIO on Saturday Afternoon at the Opera
JUNE 19, 2010, 1 pm

POV's production of Richard Strauss's Capriccio will be broadcast Saturday, June 19, 2010, at 1 pm on CBC Radio Two's Saturday Afternoon at the Opera.
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Richard Strauss has never been surpassed for beauty of orchestral colour, and his ravishing score for Capriccio perhaps gives the edge to music in the words-vs-music debate of the opera. Here are a few musical highlights.

Opening String Sextet

The opera opens with pure music. A rehearsal of Flamand's newly composed Sextet is in progress. As the musicians play, the countess listens, enraptured, while the director La Roche dozes. The composer, Flaman, and the poet, Olivier, realize they are both in love with the countess and agree that they are friendly rivals, both in love and in art.


Concert performance of the Sextett from Capriccio by the Ensemble Altrerisonanze
Rosario Genovese and Susanna Pisana, violins; Alessandro Santucci and Paola Emanuele, violas
Adriano Ancarani and Andrea Fossà, violoncello; Andrea Riderelli, conductor
Ottobre 2008, Oratorio del Gonfalone, Rome

 

Kein Andres, das mir so im Herzen loht

The justly famous climax of the opera is the gorgeous final scene, in which the Countess sings the sonnet, Kein Andres, das mir so im Herzen loht, in its fourth iteration within the opera.

The final scene of the opera is introduced by a ravishing orchestral interlude. The Countess discovers she will be alone for dinner, but that both poet and musician have arranged to meet her in the library the next morning to learn her decision – words or music; poet or musician. As she struggles with her dilemma (for she loves them both), she sings the sonnet. Words and music are now inextricably linked.

Here are two excerpts from this wonderful final scene.


Beginning of the Final Scene of Capriccio, with Renée Fleming
Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Patrick Summers
Opening Night Gala, 2008-2009 Season.

 


Dame Kiri Te Kanawa sings Kein Andres, das mir so im Herzen loht.
San Francisco Opera, David Runnicles, Conductor


The original of the sonnet is a French poem, Je ne saurois aimer autre que vous, from the Continuation des Amours of the 16th century poet Pierre de Ronsard. When Richard Strauss and Clemens Krauss were working on the concept for Capriccio, they cast about for an authentic French love sonnet to represent the cause of words in the words-and-music debate within the opera. Hans Swarowsky, then a young conductor working for Krauss as a dramaturge, was charged with finding an appropriate 18th century poem. When his research revealed that love sonnets had gone out of fashion at that time, Swarowsky suggested the sonnet by Ronsard and translated it into elegant and lyrical German. The delighted Strauss immediately set it to music, first as a Lied for voice and piano, then, with some changes, as the pivotal sonnet whose iterations form the core of the opera.

In the opera we first encounter the sonnet, ostensibly written by the poet Olivier, as it is recited by the Countess's brother in a play within the play. For the Count, this is a chance to embark on his newest amorous adventure by impressing his leading lady, the glamourous actress Clairon.

Moments later the sonnet is recited "for real" as Olivier declares his ardent love for the Countess. Flamand, the composer, then snatches it away and rushes off to set it to music. When Flamand returns to sing his musical version to the Countess, Olivier is dismayed:

The rhymes destroyed, the sentences dismembered . . . Who can hear the slightest sense in the text? . . . This lucky man climbs my words like a ladder to victory! . . . Is it now his poem, or still my own?

The Countess, however, is enraptured by the musical setting and declares that the sonnet now belongs to her, and that poet and composer are now joined for all time in the sonnet – no matter how much the poet resents it!

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