Richard Strauss : Capriccio
Metropolitan Chorus and Orchestra
Sir Andrew Davis
I find it interesting that of the four times I've seen Capriccio, not one of them has been set in the intended period - which is around 1774, give or take, I believe. Three (including this one) were set in the 1920s, and one in the year of its première, 1942. It seems indicative that all these directors have had a similar reaction, that behind all the playful badinage, there is, there has to be, a deeper nostalgia for a world that is about to face a terrible crisis, something that will render all these discussions, all the deliciously uncertain emotions, completely trivial. Leaving it in period "limits" the cataclysm to the French Revolution, updating it makes it global. On the whole, it works fairly well, save that you spend the first half-hour or so wincing at all the extremely specific period references in the libretto (to Gluck, Piccini, Goldoni, the supremacy of Italian opera over other genres, the prevalence of mythological subjects in the theatre, etc.) which now sound rather incongruous. That hurdle crossed, however, the end result is usually quite acceptable, regardless of how much foreboding the director may choose to insert in his reading.
That said, the Met's current version, directed by John Cox, is a light-hearted one. Madeleine is nearly as insouciant as her flighty brother, in love with being in love and being loved, more than with any actual person, eager to drink deep from the cup of life. You get the impression, perhaps, of a woman married too young, and probably not entirely happily, now liberated (she's a widow) from that burden, and determined to make full use of all the advantages she now has to enjoy herself. Renée Fleming certainly plays into this, her interpretation is bright, sensual, a little greedy for attention. The voice is ideal for the part, no surprise there, rich and creamy and caressing - it was a great pity that the last ten minutes, arguably the most beautiful music in the opera, were marred by a failure in the satellite feed that left us with a stuttering audio signal.
The fact that the piece ends with a 20-minute monologue for the lead soprano tends to ensure that one focuses on her as the most important member of the cast, but in truth, this is an ensemble piece, and it is absolutely vital that the other five principals should be equally good, and very well-balanced. In this, the Met got it exactly right, I have never heard, live, so cohesive an ensemble of such consistently high quality. The weakest was probably Morten Frank Larsen (the Count), and even that's strictly relative. Sarah Connolly made a fine grande dame of theatre (looking amusingly rather like a handsomer version of Dame Edith Sitwell), Russell Braun (Olivier) and Joseph Kaiser (Flamand) an ardent pair of suitors, and Peter Rose a genial but commanding La Roche.
None of which would mean a thing if the conductor is not capable of handling the score. Davis came through with flying colours, particularly during the Laughing Ensemble, which was rendered with exemplary clarity. Apart from the principal horn cracking horribly in the solo at the start of the "Mondnacht" interlude (for which I'm sure the player is still kicking her/himself this morning!), the Met orchestra played sumptuously, without ever overwhelming the singers (save when Strauss requires it). If not for the transmission problem, as close to perfect as an evening gets.
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