A “Pro-Life” Opera

Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow)

Music by Richard Strauss; Libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal

I had the good fortune to view a very special event at the Metropolitan Opera yesterday evening – the return of Die Frau ohne Schatten. A supremely demanding work for any opera company to stage, The Woman without a Shadow requires five demanding leading roles (including 2 starring sopranos!); a huge orchestra including gongs, celesta, wind machine and glass harmonica; and an incredible series of changes of scene. This evening the Met rose to the challenge. The singing of the principals and in the many smaller parts was uniformly strong, the orchestral playing magnificently (Vladimir Jurowski, director) and, for once, a very modern production  – from 2001 – was largely successful.

The score itself is extraordinary in its range and variety. There are both rapturous late romantic and austere “modern” passages. Chamber music-like sections and solos for cello and violin alternate with the overwhelming deployment of almost the entire orchestra. Hymn-like, radiant choruses and interludes, highly dramatic scenes for the principals, a spectacular “Hollywood” ending – it’s all here and more. This spectacular opera, finished in 1915, only premiered after the First World War in 1919. It was a most inauspicious time and The Woman without a Shadow only assumed its rightful place in the repertoire beginning in the 1950’s, after legendary revivals in Munich and Vienna. And then came the never-to-be-forgotten staging at he Met’s first season at Lincoln Center in 1966.

Now what may be of particular interest to readers of the blog is the libretto of Hugo von Hofmannsthal – Catholic author, inheritor and guardian of Central European tradition. It was he who wrote the mystery play Everyman (based on a medieval text) that has been featured in the Salzburger Festspiele ever since their beginning. He is the one who helped to launch a revival of interest in the Central European, Catholic baroque era by, for example, his libretto for another opera of Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier (also on the program of the Metropolitan Opera his month!). For The Woman without a Shadow Hofmannsthal provided a complex text dense with symbolism and poetic expressiveness.

Reviewers and program notes for this production tell us how The Woman without a Shadow has a ”simple moral”: “one person’s happiness cannot be bought at the price of another’s,” that it “glorifies the simple pleasures of family life and love” that the shadow of the title is a “metaphor of humanity.”  All this may be true, yet except for one reviewer’s almost fearful reference, the obvious “message” of this opera remains unspoken; it is a commentary on the “modern woman” and her manipulation – and rejection – of childbearing and family life.  It is the story of two women: – one from the spirit world (high society) and the other from the working class. The former wishes to acquire a shadow (become a mother) by depriving another of motherhood. Whereas her counterpart in the “lower world” of those who must work is tempted to sell her expectations of motherhood, dissolve her marriage and pursue a life of individual self–fulfillment. A semi -diabolical third female character, the nurse, eggs her on with words and visions that could be taken from advertisements of our day. And what other opera has an off-stage chorus of unborn children (in this production apparently sung by children’s’ choir)?

Such a theme – and the way it is developed and resolved in this opera – is not at all in conformity with the expectations of the Establishment.  So reviewers have usually critiqued the libretto’s alleged pretentiousness and complexity or, nowadays, praised its celebration of more general human themes. Yet this opera is, in a real but more subtle way,  as Catholic as the Dialogues of the Carmelites which the Met has also recently staged.  Musically inclined Catholics unfamiliar with this work will find it amazing that it could have premiered in 1919 – and be revived in 2013. They will enjoy a marvelous musical experience and a spectacular staging – and, for once, take away much to reflect upon as well.

Three performances of Die Frau ohne Schatten remain: on Saturday, November 16; Wednesday, November 20 and Saturday November 23