Capriccio

Richard Strauss
Production from 2016
Co-production La Monnaie / De Munt, Opéra de Lyon (delegated co-productor)

OPERA AND LOVE: SAME RULES APPLY…

‘An opera is an absurd thing. Orders are given in song; politics is discussed in a duet. One danses around a grave, and dagger thrusts are dealt out in music.’ In Capriccio, his last opera, Richard Strauss reflects on the opera genre, and more especially on the question of which actually takes priority – the music or the words. This dilemma is depicted metaphorically in this ‘Konversationsstück für Musik’: an 18^th-century countess is faced with the heart-rending choice between the love of a composer and that of a poet. Strauss’s musical voice is here full of dramatic power, humour, and sentiment and reaches a peak of refinement, sometimes flirting with chamber music. In his debut at La Monnaie, the Hungarian director David Marton creates a dream-world in which theatre itself appears on stage. ‘If you choose one, you lose the other! Doesn’t one always lose, when one wins?’

Stage director
David Marton

Set design and costumes
Christian Friedländer

Music director
Lothar Koenigs