The Strauss Collection

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall 6/3/25

Scottish Opera

The Orchestra of Scottish Opera, Stuart Stratford (conductor), Helena Dix & Rhian Lois (sopranos), Hanna Hipp (mezzo-soprano), Roland Wood (baritone).

‘The Strauss Collection’ is a selection of Richard Strauss operatic goodies from ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’, ‘Arabella’ and ‘Der Rosenkavalier’ performed in concert, in German with English surtitles, curated by Scottish Opera’s Music Director Stuart Stratford.  There were two performances, the first in Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on 6th March and the second in Edinburgh’s Usher Hall two days later.  This review refers to the former.  Stuart conducted the Orchestra of Scottish Opera and four soloists sang the vocal lines.  There was no chorus.  Australian soprano Helena Dix sang the dramatic leads, Welsh soprano Rhian Lois sang the coloratura soprano roles, Polish mezzo Hanna Hipp sang the celebrated Strauss/Hofmannsthal trouser roles, and English baritone Roland Wood, no stranger to Scottish Opera in recent productions (‘Marx in London!’ and ‘The Makropulos Affair’), delivered again in the bass/baritone roles. 

An excerpt from ‘Ariadne auf Naxos’ opened the concert.  The opera dramatises a surprisingly fruitful collision of high and low culture.  An opera seria based on Greek legend is forced to accommodate a ‘Commedia del’arte‘ troupe in the cast.  In the Prologue, the Composer (Hanna Hipp in a trouser role) is initially implacably opposed to the destruction of his ‘heilige Kunst’ but reluctantly relents (with undiminished misgivings, shared by the Prima Donna, Helena Dix) when the Music Master (Roland Wood) points out that he won’t get paid if he doesn’t.  Another (and possibly more significant) factor in his change of heart is the charm and beauty of the lead comedienne of the troupe Zerbinetta (Rhian Lois) and the fact that her vision for the role of Ariadne is, to his surprise, artistically cogent.  She has looks, charm and brains.  The aria ‘Den Tod! Das sagt man so’ makes the case.   Hanna Hipp was superb as the aesthetically conflicted (but ultimately smitten) Composer.  Strauss’ music left us in no doubt about the burgeoning emotions taking hold in a fabulous climax, even though the orchestration, with trimmed strings and brass (in perhaps a nod to the rather scholarly purity of opera seria), might have led one to expect a more subdued sound world.   Rhian Lois’ Zerbinetta was playful and flirtatious, but with hidden depths.  Delightful.

There are pros and cons to concert performances of opera.  A big pro is the chance to see the fabulous Orchestra of Scottish Opera out of the pit, and see and feel fully the musicality behind dialogues between singer and instrumental soloists and to fully experience the power of the orchestra when Stuart  Stratford turns on the juice.  After the ‘Ariadne’ excerpt, he walked through the orchestra with a microphone, pointing out features of Strauss’ orchestration, contrasting it with Mozart, stressing the relative harmonic and rhythmic complexity in the texture of the inner parts.  Fascinating.

In ‘Arabella’, two sisters seek an advantageous marriage to solve their father’s money worries.  The younger sister Zdenka (Rhian Lois), disguised as a man Zdenko to avoid the burden of a second dowry, has been writing love letters in her sister’s name Arabella (Helena Dix) to attract a suitor, with a certain Matteo appearing to be keen.  Arabella is not keen, waiting for Mr Right to come along, whom she knows she will recognise.  Zdenka vows to keep trying, herself in the dark, Arabella in the light.  In their exquisite Act 1 duet, ‘Die Wörter Hätt’ ich wohl in mir’, this narrative unfolds.  Back to full-size Strauss orchestra, this was thoroughly excellent.  The next three excerpts were combined in ‘a sort of suite’, as Stuart Stratford put it.  The girls’ father has written to an elderly wealthy Mandryka with a picture of Arabella, but the equally wealthy nephew, a widower also called Mandryka (Roland Wood) arrives, wondering if it was a joke and revealing that no man could resist the beauty in the picture.  His Act 1 baritone solo ‘Dem Onkel einem Spaß’ setting out these details was rich and powerful.  In Act 2 at a ball, Mandryka confides in Arabella about his dead wife and declares his love for her: ‘Ich habe eine Frau gehabt’.  At first unsure, she comes to the realisation that he is “the one” and their ensuing duet of mutual devotion had a lovely Wagnerian epilogue.  After an idyllic bridge passage, their Act 3 duet of reconciliation and forgiveness (for the embarassment of Matteo showing up), ‘Das war sehr gut’, was very lovely.  This was my first encounter with ‘Arabella’ and I have to say I am a fan.  For those curious about the fate of the dutiful, selfless Zdenka, when Matteo realises that the love letters that won his heart were actually written by her, he declares his love and they all live happily ever after.

But ‘Der Rosenkavalier’ remains my favourite Strauss opera and the whole of the second half of the concert was devoted to three substantial excerpts.  The infamous opening scene of Act 1, introduced by a magnificently prolonged orchestral orgasm that leaves us in no doubt what the Marschallin (Helena Dix) and her teenage lover Octavian (Hanna Hipp in a trouser role) have been getting up to in her husband’s absence, contrasts their world views, he infatuated but insecure and jealous, she flattered but worldly-wise, knowing that she cannot hold his affection forever.  The Mozartian phrasing in the clarinet part when they have breakfast always reminds me of the parallels between Marschallin/Octavian and Countess/Cherubino in Mozart’s ‘Marriage of Figaro’.  Roland Wood provided the offstage voice of the boorish (and rather Trumpian) Baron Ochs von Lerchenau, aristocratic suitor for the hand of the lovely Sophie (Rhian Lois).  In the second excerpt, ‘The Presentation of the Rose’ from Act 2, Octavian is tasked with presenting Sophie with a silver rose as a token of Ochs’ affection.  The chiming chords of high winds and harps that are the rose’s leitmotif will always be a spine-tingling thrill for me and they were no less again.  With operatic inevitability and in a barely concealed nod to ‘Tristan’, the dish and the messenger fall for each other and Sophie and Octavian sing another Strauss duet of mutual devotion.  Gorgeous.  In the final excerpt, a trio and duet from the end of Act 3, Ochs accepts his engagement is broken, the Marschallin accepts her time for affairs is over (in an aria that always reminds me in mood of Mozart’s ‘Porgi amor’) and ‘releases’ Octavian, Sophie wonders about why the Marschallin appears to be ‘giving’ her Octavian, and “all’s well that ends well”.  A few more delicious shimmering reprises of the rose leitmotif and a final flourish and the opera finishes.

Thoroughly enjoyable.  Full marks from me.