257

The Nurse is condemned to wander the mortal realm. Refusing to accept a shadow that comes at the cost of Baraks happiness with his Wife, the Empress is rewarded with a shadow of her own. Her action frees the Emperor, and both couples are reunited 3.

The Empress has no shadow, and learns that the Emperor will turn to stone if she does not obtain one. She and the Nurse resolve to fi nd a shadow among humans. In their home, Barak the dyer is mocked by his Wife. The Empress and Nurse offer themselves as servants to the Wife, and promise her luxury if she casts off her shadow and renounces her marriage bed. She does so, but is disturbed to hear the voices of her unborn children beckoning her.

The Nurse conjures a Young Man to tempt the Wife. The Wife anxiously awakens her husband, whom the nurse drugged, only to gloat over her near infi delity. When she vows to forfeit her shadow and fertility, he is enraged. Suddenly fi nding him manly and worthy of respect, she pleads for his mercy before they are both swallowed into the earth.

Barak and his Wife, now penitent and separated into two cells in

the bowels of the earth, long for one another t.

F Lotte Lehmann, who created the Dyers Wife, claimed not to mind the

Empresss musical pre-eminence: I was perfectly content to sing myself

into a state of near prostration and then gradually fade towards the end. f

Strausss underperformed masterpiece, Die Frau

ohne Schatten, follows two pairs of lovers to emotional

and spiritual salvation. As a daughter of the King

of Spirits, the Empress lacks that crucial symbol of

humanity, a shadow, and spends the opera considering

whether or not to steal one from a human woman.

Strausss music, driven, opulent, and cataclysmic,

matches Hofmannsthals searching, abstract libretto.

Beloved Strauss soprano Inge Borkh (right) is the

Dyers Wife and Wagnerian powerhouse Martha Mdl is

the Nurse at the Bayerische Staatsoper in 1963.

Kk

DIE FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN(The Woman without a Shadow)

w Opera in three acts, 3 hours

d 19141917

e 10 October, 1919, Staatsoper, Vienna (Austria)

p Hugo von Hofmannsthal

PRINCIPAL ROLESN n

PLOT SYNOPSIS

A mythical time and place

ACT ONE

ACT TWO

ACT THREE

Empress soprano Daughter of Keikobad, King

of Spirits

Emperor tenor Her husband

Nurse mezzo-soprano Her protector in the world

of spirits

Barak baritone A dyer and good-hearted man

Dyers Wife soprano His unhappy wife

RICHARD STRAUSS

Nun will

ich jubelnMir anvertraut