Above: Vienna Philharmonic in Salzburg / Credit: Anne Zeuner
For cast lists, please visit the Opera Series Overview.
The 2024 WFMT Radio Network Opera Series concludes the season with the Salzburg Festival’s brilliant production of Richard Strauss’s Capriccio. The Vienna State Opera performs this opera that delves into the nature of art and the rivalry between words and music. Elsa Dreisig stars as The Countess, with Bo Skovhus as The Count, and Sebastian Kohlhepp as Flamand. This broadcast is conducted by Christian Thielemann in a production that offers a reflective and elegant end to the season.
Based on an idea by Stefan Zweig, Richard Strauss’s Capriccio, his final work for the stage, circles around a problem that is as old as the genre of opera itself: the relationship between words and music. Set in Paris around 1775, the plot combines an aesthetic debate with the rivalry between the poet Olivier (played by Konstantine Krimmel) and the musician Flamand, who are both wooing Countess Madeleine. Strauss regarded this highly unusual work as his ‘testament’. When Clemens Krauss, co-author of the libretto, mooted the possibility of them continuing their collaboration, Strauss pointed to the famous monologue of the Countess that is preceded by the hauntingly beautiful ‘Moonlight Music’: ‘Isn’t this D flat major the best conclusion to my theatrical life-work?’
‘A Conversation Piece for Music’ was the subtitle Richard Strauss gave to his final opera Capriccio, finished in 1941. A poet and a composer vie for the affections of the young, arts-loving Countess Madeleine, and soon get mired in a spat over two issues. Which is the greater art: poetry or musical composition? And what is more crucial in an opera: the words or the music? For Madeleine, settling on an answer proves just as challenging as choosing between her two suitors — and so in the end the decision is left to the audience.
About the Salzburg Festival:
… as Goethe wrote. A feast in this city of which the great Austrian poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal said, “Salzburg is the heart of the heart of Europe. It lies halfway between South and North, between Switzerland and the Slavic countries.”
The Salzburg Festival was founded more than 90 years ago by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Max Reinhardt and Richard Strauss, and is a magnet today more than ever. We are often asked what the secret of this Festival is and what makes it so special and magical. There are three main factors that make the Festival such a success: First of all, the Salzburg Festival offers a broader artistic program than any other festival: Salzburg features opera, drama and concerts. And in the selection of works and interpretations, it also offers the broadest spectrum from Mozart, the genius loci, to modern works, from classical interpretations to avant-garde experimentation, from Hofmannsthal’s Jedermann to Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. And only the best and most famous artists from all over the world are invited to Salzburg. Furthermore, visitors to the Salzburg Festival can combine the enjoyment of art with vacationing. During the daytime, the unique surroundings and the lakes of the Salzkammergut make for wonderful excursions and golfing – in the evening, the Festival beckons with incomparable performances. And finally, the Salzburg Festival has a very special flair. Salzburg’s Hofstallgasse and the entire Baroque old city center form the Festival’s backdrop.
About the Host
Lisa Flynn has been a program host and producer for WFMT since 1991. She presents The New Releases and has hosted many programs for the WFMT Radio Network, including War Letters (which won the 2002 Peter Lisagor Award) and a series of live broadcasts from Salzburg to celebrate Mozart’s 250th birthday in 2006. As WFMT’s midday weekday announcer, Lisa hosts live studio performances and interviews guest artists including Renée Fleming, John Adams, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, John Eliot Gardiner, and many others. Before coming to Chicago, Lisa presented classical music at WOSU in Columbus, Ohio, and at WMFE and WUCF in Orlando, Florida. She holds a music degree from the University of Central Florida.
This program is a part of the WFMT Radio Network Opera Series, a series designed to complement the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts to fill out the year with great Opera content. The series begins in June and lasts until November.
