Conversation piece for music in one act
Libretto by Clemens Krauss and the composer
World premiere: October 28 1942, National Theater, Munich
This production performed for the first time: January 14th 2018
With German and English surtitles. ca. 2hrs 20mins, with no interval
Introduction, in German, in the Holzfoyer half an hour before performances begin
A castle near Paris in 1942, France is under German occupation Preparations are underway to celebrate Countess Madeleine's birthday. She is known for her love of the arts and the theatre director La Roche is rehearsing a programme to celebrate it. The poet Olivier's contribution: his newly finished play, the musician Flamand's: a sextet. Both are in love with the young, widowed, countess. Who will Madeleine choose – words or music? The countess and her brother discuss the priority of word or music. While Madeleine, it is true, warms deeply to music, but does not want to have to decide between the two disciplines or wooing adversaries, the count plumps for word. He admires the famous actress Clairon, who is expected that day. He is drawn by the »joy of the moment«. But Madeleine longs for a deeper, more consistent way of life and love. She cannot witness the devastating consequences of German occupation any longer without doing something, so plans, this very evening, with help from her staff, to join the résistance. Madeleine is alone with Olivier and Flamand. Olivier uses the opportunity to confess his love for Madeleine with the sonnet he dedicated to her, while Flamand rushes off to set it to music. When he comes back and presents it to her, another argument flares up about who the author now is. The countess ends the debate by claiming the sonnet as her own. Flamand lets the countess know how he feels about her too. He is so persistent that she promises him to let him know which of the two men she has decided upon at 11am the next day, in the library. While hot chocolate and cake is being prepared for everyone, La Roche introduces them to a dancer and two singers from Italy. The Theatre Director finally manages to make himself heard. His impassioned speech mirrors a deep belief in theatre and its values, reports on his rich wealth of theatre experience and emphasizes his striving for a way out of the ivory tower of art by portraying »living people of flesh and blood instead of phantoms« on stage. He refers to theatre, but »World Theatre« too, and the countless number of people suffering in silence in 1942, under National Socialism. Olivier and Flamand, who are more intent on being able to pursue their art, don't want to be confronted with politics and meet his appeal with mockery and rejection. Madeleine recognises a kindred spirit in La Roche. Once everybody has calmed down, the dispute about the primacy of words or music culminates in Olivier and Flamand being commissioned to write an opera together. La Roche, Flamand, Olivier and Clairon – accompanied by the Count – take their leave and set off for Paris. Monsieur Taupe, a shady character who claims to be a prompter, emerges from the theatre. He explains to the steward that he fell asleep, and that the »wheels of the world of theater only begin to turn when he has taken his seat in his box«. Did he really fall asleep? Or did he creep into the darkened theatre on purpose to watch, unseen, what was going on in the count's household? Madeleine takes her leave from the events of the day, from her life as a much-courted patron in her Rococo castle... When the steward calls for action with the codeword, »Souper«, the people's fight for freedom begins.
Richard Strauss wanted »no lyricism, poetry or false sentimentality« in his last opera. He and his friend Clemens Krauss, the conductor and librettist, cooked up this »conversation piece for music«. Countess Madeleine is being courted by two artists: the writer Olivier and musician Flamand, the eternal question about the primacy of word or music personified – who will she choose?Capriccio, the work of two of national socialism's favourite artists, was performed for the first time in 1942, in the middle of World War II. A flight from reality? Certainly. But it can't be a coincidence that, despite censors, the action is set in a castle near Paris. No one could miss Strauss and Krauss' side-swipes at the here and now in a discussion about theatre, which seems, more increasingly, to be a synonym for world theatre. Brigitte Fassbaender and the set and costume designer Johannes Leiacker set the opera in the times when it was written: in Paris in the 1940s, under German occupation. Brigitte Fassbaender made good use of the ambiguity in Capriccio, while paying careful attention to many of the foibles of life in a theatre, sometimes in a critical, sometimes amusing manner. Strauss challenged the operatic form and included quotes from some of his other operas, no wonder he viewed this work as his »legacy«.
Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester
