Glyndebourne: The Untold History Page #5

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His reputation was based

on symphonic music, basically.

Symphonic poems, like Don Juan

or Also Sprach Zarathustra,

which everybody knows from 2001.

It begins in C major

with this very basic...

..theme and C major to C minor.

No black notes,

then the introduction

of black notes...

And then...

Absolutely magnificent.

He wrote two successful operas,

Elektra and Salome, which really

established Strauss's reputation

as a first-rate opera composer.

Hofmannsthal is known principally

as the librettist

for six of Richard Strauss's operas.

He wrote the play Elektra,

which attracted Strauss's attention

and then collaborated on five more

dramas with Strauss.

He was right at the heart of

a creative movement

of literary modernism in Vienna

and very quickly became part of

a group of young writers

called Jung Wien - Young Vienna -

who met in the Cafe Griensteidl

and he rapidly became the dominant

poet of his period.

These dark and bloodthirsty

two operas,

Salome and Elektra,

were in a sense popular modernism.

This was a kind of decadent, shocking

modernism that was highly consumable.

Both Hofmannsthal and Strauss

had ideas of wanting to do

something comic, something lighter

and by the time of Rosenkavalier,

Hofmannsthal wanted to do something

not so much a la mode, if you like.

It's not exactly neoclassical,

but he's wanting to look

back to the 18th century,

he's wanting to, as an Austrian,

he's wanting to plug in a little bit

to the Austrian Catholic

sort of heritage,

the cultural dramatic heritage.

So they're going back

to the Mozart operas

and he's going back to French comedy,

to Moliere.

Artists like Hofmannsthal, and indeed

to some extent, Strauss, who

were members if you like of the high

bourgeoisie, the lower aristocracy,

they, part of them,

longed for that world where

everything was nicely ordered

and everyone knew where they were and

where they were in the class system.

The premiere in Dresden was

incredibly successful,

so much so that

they started putting on

special Rosenkavalier trains to

ply between I think it was Vienna

and Dresden.

Everybody came to see it

and then it came to London.

It has been a smash hit ever since.

Right from the start,

Rosenkavalier was rejected by some

audiences as Strauss stepping back,

as a retreat from this exciting,

colourful kind of modernism

of Salome and Elektra.

When it was first performed in Milan,

it was actually

leafleted at the Scala -

they had leaflets, the Futurists

leafleted the audience, as happens

sometimes an Italian theatres.

Basically denouncing

Strauss for having denied,

having absconded

from the Modernist path

and written this rather aggressive

work that had waltzes,

which they didn't believe were

appropriate at La Scala.

You didn't have waltzes

in serious operas

because that was associated

with operetta.

Salome and Elektra are very advanced

chromatically.

Lots of nasty noises.

There's a dissonant sound...

Turns in Rosenkavalier to...

So everybody thinks,

"Ah, he wants to be popular,

sentimental", but in fact,

Rosenkavalier in my view

is even more sophisticated.

It's longer and it's

more symphonically cohesive.

It's a little bit like a Mahler

symphony in the sense that

very disparate things - folk music,

high art, symphonic things that

come from Beethoven and everything

in between - is brought together

in a symphonic unity.

Strauss was interested in himself.

He was interested

in the promotion of his music

and when the Nazis came to power,

he saw an opportunity for himself.

Up to that point, although he was

still ostensibly the most

famous composer in Germany,

he was, in a way, an old man and sort

of seen as yesterday's musician.

Remember, before the First World War,

he was regarded as a great Modernist,

but by the '20s, his music

was seen as old-fashioned

and he was disregarded by the

younger generation of composers.

So, he saw this opportunity

when the Nazis came to power to

actually occupy the centre stage

once again and one way in which

he hoped to occupy the centre stage

was by assuming a position

of responsibility for the rights

of composers, something he had

fought for all throughout his life.

What I mean by rights

for composers is that

when works are performed,

the composers get proper

royalties for those works

and so he was really

agitating this and thought that

if he would be sympathetic to the new

regime, he would get his way.

And he spoke very warmly about

the new regime because he thought

the new regime was really interested

in music and he actually said to

one friend, "Thank God we now are in

a regime that's interested in music."

And so all through the first years

of the Nazi period, all his actions

seem to be very much in support

of the work the Nazis were doing.

He was never a party member, but at

least the beginning of this stage,

he was very much demonstrating

accommodation to the Nazis.

TRANSLATION FROM GERMAN

Do remember, also in '36,

he conducted at the Olympic Games

in the opening ceremony.

He wrote a work called the

Olympic Hymn, which he conducted.

Strauss put on an opera which was

also premiered in Dresden -

Die Schweigsame Frau,

where the libretto was by

the Jewish writer, Stefan Zweig.

The problem with

the collaboration between

Zweig and Strauss was that Strauss

was not Jewish and Zweig was,

and when the opera was premiered

in 1935,

Strauss insisted that Zweig's name

appeared on the playbills,

not just "comedy after Ben Jonson",

but "comedy by Stefan Zweig".

That got him into trouble

with the Nazis.

I believe even Hitler was down

on the list of attendees

for the opening night and as soon

as Strauss began to make a fuss,

the Nazi bigwigs stayed away.

It was illegal, actually, for an

Aryan to collaborate with a Jew.

They wanted to just remove his name

from the playbill and when Strauss

found this out, he threatened to

pull the plug on the whole thing.

And the irony is that Strauss

wrote a letter to Zweig

saying that he was fed up of his job

as president of the

Reichsmusikkammer.

He was only play-acting and all

he was interested in was good art

and preserving good art,

and the letter was intercepted

by the Gestapo

and sent directly to Hitler.

Then he was made to resign,

so ironically,

although he was a representative

of the German Government in '36,

he'd fallen out with the hierarchy,

but they were

able to use him as a kind of puppet

for their own propaganda.

The end of the Second World War,

when the Americans came into Germany

and Strauss was in his villa

and he came out and he saw

the American soldiers,

he immediately introduced

himself to the American soldiers.

He said, "I am Richard Strauss,

the composer of Der Rosenkavalier."

He said that because he knew

it was his most popular opera.

I think the key to Rosenkavalier

is in the three central characters.

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