(Preview) Scottish Opera: Daphne
Scottish Opera are to play three concert performances of Richard Strauss’s marvellous one act opera, ‘Daphne,’ in Glasgow and Haddington this week and in the Usher Hall in Edinburgh on 10th December. His late masterpiece, premiered in Dresden in November 1938, is rarely performed as it needs two fabulous tenors, and is too short for a full evening, but rather too long for a double bill. I sang in a concert version in 1990 in the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, and have loved it ever since. Apart from the two heroic tenors, it requires a full bass, a deep contralto and a tireless soprano, which is a rare combination indeed. Our performance, conducted by the renowned Strauss expert Norman del Mar, was, I think, its British premiere, and Scottish Opera will give the work its Scottish premiere.
Originally conceived as a double bill with ‘Friedenstag’, Strauss soon realised that such a combination was impossible, and the operas appeared separately with ‘Friedenstag’ opening in Munich in July 1938. Its anti-war sentiment was unpopular with the Nazis and it was shelved in Germany soon after the outbreak of war in 1939, and ‘Daphne’ was also neglected for a while. Strauss has often been accused of collaboration, but Hans Hotter told me that he was never a Nazi, and indeed saw his music as a beacon of light shining in the face of horror.
‘Daphne,’ with a libretto by Joseph Gregor, is loosely based on the Greek mythological figure, Daphne, from Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ with aspects of ‘The Bacchae’ by Euripides in addition.
The chaste Daphne loves nature and the sun, but shuns human romance. She rebuffs her suitor Leukippos, and refuses to wear a ceremonial dress for the coming festival of Dionysus. A mysterious stranger appears, just after Daphne’s father Peneios, a fisherman, has advised the locals that the gods will appear among men again soon. Peneios calls on Daphne to welcome the visitor, who hints at strange powers and tries to embrace the girl, who runs away to her mother, Gaia.
At the festival of Dionysus (the god of, among other things, wine), Leukippos puts on Daphne’s discarded dress and joins the festivities as a girl, and manages to persuade her to dance with him/her. The stranger is furious with jealousy, creates a thunderclap, and denounces Leukippos as a fraud. Daphne, now very confused, denounces both men as frauds. At this point, the stranger reveals himself as the sun God, Apollo, which cuts no ice with the chaste Daphne, who refuses both males. Apollo in a rage kills Leukippos with an arrow. Daphne is understandably distraught, Apollo is full of regret, and he persuades Zeus to give Daphne new life in the form of the laurel tree she loves. The transformation scene is a beautiful passage of music as Daphne’s voice is turned into pure sound as she becomes one with nature.
As opera plots go, it’s somewhat sparse, but the music is stunning. The two tenors, Apollo and Leukippos, have fantastic but extremely high and difficult music to sing, Peneios and Gaia both have lovely passages, and Daphne herself is given some great stuff. Strauss was one of the best composers ever for soprano music, and Daphne’s is no exception.
The opera was dedicated to the young Karl Böhm, who conducted the premiere in Dresden, and he is the conductor on the best recording, on DG, a live transmission from Vienna in 1964, with Hilde Gueden, James King, Fritz Wunderlich, Paul Schöffler and Vera Little. Schöffler is well past his best, and pretty terrible, but the rest of the cast, and Böhm, are stunning, especially the two tenors. It must go down as one of the best live recordings of all time.
Scottish Opera’s cast, conducted by Stuart Stratford, is multinational, with several Scottish singers among the minor roles, and we can look forward to the Scottish premiere with some sense of anticipation, although the dates are a bit odd, with two this week, in Glasgow, and Haddington (in the Lammermuir Festival) but a single matinee performance in the Usher Hall on December 10th!
I have a particular affection for Daphne, not least because, in our garden, we have several laurels, including what people have told us is the biggest in Edinburgh!
