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Music Wins in Santa Fe’s Capriccio Santa Fe
Opera House
07/23/2016 - & July 27, August 5, 11, 19*, 2016
Richard Strauss Capriccio, opus 85
Ben Bliss (Flamand), Joshua Hopkins (Olivier), David Govertsen (La Roche), Amanda Majeski (The Countess), Craig Verm (The Count), Susan Graham (Clairon), Adrian Smith (The Major-Domo), Allan Glassman (Monsieur Taupe), Beth Miller (A young dancer)
Santa Fe Opera Orchestra, Leo Hussain (Conductor)
Tim Albery (Director), Tobias Hoheisel (Scenic and Costume Design), Malcolm Rippeth (Lighting), Jodi Melnick (Choreography)
A. Majeski (© Ken Howard/Santa Fe Opera)
In many ways Capriccio is a music and opera insider’s pleasure. Most opera goers will get caught up in the beauty of the music and of performance rather than a great debate over the importance of words over music or vice versa. The conclusion is a happy moment for all opera lovers. The Countess will not choose between words and music, because if she does, the opera that is about to unfold, cannot happen.
Choices that the composer had to make in Nazi Germany are not discussed in full even today. The composer’s only son married a Jewess and his beloved grandchildren were considered Jews. However closely the composer consorted with Goebbels, the net effect was to save the lives of his family.
The great 20th century German author Thomas Mann also had problems with his country, and left to live in Switzerland and the United States. His final novel, The Confessions of Felix Krull, has some of the antic spirit covering up seriousness of Capriccio, Strauss’ last work.
The Santa Fe production, in collaboration with Garsington Opera at Wormsley, is delightful. Amanda Majeski, a soprano on a rapid rise to the top, captures the Countess’s spirit and her dilemma in a love quandary in which a composer and a poet are pitted against each other. Her choice reflects both the man and the occupation. It successfully forms the arc of the dialogue. She floats notes at the top of her range, and has a luscious tone overall. The final aria sung by Majeski is one of Strauss’ loveliest tributes to the song. Majeski honors the composer as she delivers his goods.
Ben Bliss is the human embodiment of music, and bears a mustache resembling the young Strauss along with his spectacles. Warming up, Bliss’ tenor is lyric and in and of itself makes the case for music with beautifully shaped phrases.
The opera is fun, an opera within an opera. A statement is made when a Jean Arp-like modern painting is replaced by an 18th century classic portrait with a distinguished dog in the entranceway to the Countess’ salon. Elegance is championed over modernity.
Luxury casting finds a radiant Susan Graham singing Clairon, a talented actress tied to a not so talented but very amusing Count whose lack of talent drives her around the bend. Here we have a flamboyant Graham as a cross between Katharine Hepburn and Lauren Bacall, in wide pants and a jacket and also wearing great good humor.
Tim Albery directs for the opera’s high spirits. Embodying the composer’s dilemma in two characters has always helped dramatize the debate. Strauss himself comes perilously close to giving us legitimate theatre before siding with the song. David Govertsen as the impresario Max Reinhardt, Strauss’ good friend who was a Jew, sings a beautiful paean to the theatre.
Under Leo Hussain the Santa Fe Orchestra played with spunk from the sublime sextet that opens the opera on to the glorious harmonic textures that we associate most closely with Strauss. The principal horn gave a particular moving performance to evoke moonlight.
Capriccio may not be as apolitical as it seems on the surface. In the Countess’ discussion of Rameau and Couperin’s music, a case is made for the humanism of art and art as salvation. The Santa Fe Opera makes the case beautifully.
Susan Hall
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