"I am here already two weeks," Hans Hotter grumbled, "and it all happens now."
The great German bass-baritone was talking about his participation in the final week of San Francisco Opera's recently concluded "Celebration of Strauss." And while it would be wrong to say they saved the best for last - not after the stunning "Salome" and "Der Rosenkavalier" with which this festival opened June 4 and 5 - they did save the rarest. And, in terms of Hotter's part in the proceedings, the most moving.Because here is a singer whose associations with the operas of Richard Strauss, and the composer himself, go back to 1937, when he sang the role of Jokanaan in "Salome" in Munich. ("He was there every day for rehearsals," Hotter recalls of Strauss, "and I never remember him saying one loud word.")
Later Hotter took part in the premieres of "Friedenstag" (1938), "Capriccio" (1942) and "Die Liebe der Danae" (1944), each of which contains a part written especially for him. Indeed the premiere of "Capriccio" was postponed several months until he got over a case of hay fever.
On that occasion Hotter sang the role of Olivier, the young poet who vies with the composer Flamand for the attentions of the Countess Madeleine, a role he agrees looks back to the Marschallin. Later, for the EMI recording with Schwarz-kopf, he moved to the role of the self-important theater director La Roche, in which he believes the librettist, the conductor Clemens Krauss, caricatured himself.
"You must speak the words!" Hotter remembers Krauss instructing the cast. "And there was Strauss behind him, saying, `Well, I wouldn't mind if a little of the music was heard.' "
Which, as it happens, is what "Capriccio" is all about. The words or the music - which is more important? And although neither Strauss nor his librettist really answers the question, it is without doubt the latter that has kept this opera alive so that it can now be perceived as a late flowering of the Bavarian composer's genius. For even as it looks back to "Rosenkavalier," it also partakes of the autumnal glow of "Metamorphosen" and the Four Last Songs.
Happily that glow came through in this latest San Francisco Opera production, also videotaped for future broadcast and tape/disc issue.
For starters the opera has been returned to its proper period, late-18th-century France. (An earlier SFO staging placed the action, such as it is, in the 20th century.) Because despite the drawing-room nature of the comedy, I think it is important to remember that, just as "Capriccio's" single-act structure was determined in part by the air raids that even then were signaling the fall of the Third Reich, with the coming of the French Revolution a decade later the way of life depicted onstage would likewise be no more.
As with the bombing raids, Strauss was somehow able to abstract himself from that and produce one of his most intimate, conversational works. To his credit, SFO music director Donald Runnicles maintained that tone, never overpowering the voices, in contrast to his "Salome" of the following evening, June 26. At the same time I never expect to hear the affecting final scene more gorgeously sung than it was by Kiri Te Kanawa, reprising her Countess of three years ago.
Nor did it hurt on this one night to have Hotter himself on hand for the pre-curtain lecture, in which he recalled not only his connection with the opera but the final rehearsal of "Danae" at Salzburg two years later, two days after the failed assassination attempt on Hitler, and Strauss' words to the assembled singers and musicians.
"My dear friends," he remembers the composer saying, "from the bottom of my heart I thank you. You have fulfilled one of my dreams, perhaps the last one I will ever have. This is the end of Occidental culture. I hope we will meet in a better world."
Later I asked Hotter what he thought Strauss meant. Was this a reference to the non-Aryan influence many feared would follow the fall of Germany?
"I think he was convinced that artistic life for a long time would be finished, because there was so much of a breakdown," Hotter replied. "We all thought this was the end of opera, at least for our generation, and we thought to rebuild the German cities would take 30 years at least. Much to our surprise, it took five years."
In that time Hotter's career was also rebuilt, once he satisfied the authorities that he had never been politically involved.
"We found your records at the Obersalzburg, at Hitler's house," he remembers the investigating officer saying to him. "Then I said, `As far as I know, the Pope also has a few records of mine.' "
He subsequently went on to establish himself as the premier Wagnerian bass-baritone of his generation, as much in demand in the opera houses of England and America as at Bayreuth. At 84, it's been a while since he tackled those roles. Even so, he is still in demand as a teacher and even now takes on the occasional Narrator in "Gurre-lieder" or Schigolch, as he did four years ago in San Francisco Opera's production of Berg's "Lulu."
The same week of the "Capriccio" lecture, for example, he not only continued his SFO master classes but consented to a few interviews and sat in on a Sunday-morning panel discussion (the only time I have ever seen critics line up for autographs).
As part of those discussions Hotter recalled how, in 1944, Strauss had him to his home to play part of "Danae" for him on the piano. As musicologist Bryan Gilliam reminded us, though, the piece Strauss was filmed playing on his piano (in "Ein Leben fuer Musik") is the transformation music from another of his neglected operatic children, 1938's "Daphne," the last of the festival's offerings.
Here, too, one finds the late fascination with Greek mythology coupled with the composer's ongoing love affair with the soprano voice. It may not work theatrically (earlier, SFO general director Lotfi Mansouri commented that it was good they were only doing a semi-staged production, "because I wouldn't know how to stage a woman turning into a tree") but it does contain some beautiful music, especially as sung by British soprano Janice Watson in her North American operatic debut.
Not only did she look right for the role - she sounded right, with exactly the right combination of innocence and radiance for the concluding metamorphosis (there's that word again). Liebestod-like, it is arguably the high point of the score. At the same time conductor Andrew Davis found the atmosphere in the opening pastoral scene and leaned into the climactic revelry of the feast with a will.
Between the tenors, I found the Leukippos of Hong-Shen Li more agreeable in tone than the forced heroics of Jon Frederic West's Apollo. But Franz Hawlata registered nobly as Peneios, the title character's father, and alto Gweneth Bean did her best with the low-lying part of Gaea, her mother.
Again I don't know that a full staging would have added much to the piece's overall impact. More critical were the unvisualized changes in clothing, such as when Daphne places the cloak around the sun god's shoulders. (For some reason a tuxedo doesn't carry the same weight.) Nor did it enhance the drama to have Leukippos remain standing when he is supposed to have been struck dead.
Still, even more than in "Capriccio," it is not the text that keeps this work alive. (Even Strauss was not happy with Joseph Gregor's libretto.) But, like that work, it draws the listener into a very personal world, in which once again the soprano and the orchestra have the last word. And with Strauss that is nearly always worth hearing, in or out of the opera house.