Exploration and Discovery

'Die Frau Ohne Schatten' at Covent Garden,
reviewed by ALICE McVEIGH

Here Strauss' problem-child of an opera (he had to wait years for his librettist, who also made it almost impossible to effectively stage it) received a really glorious performance overall [Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London UK, 20 March 2014]. There were a few problems of orchestral balance, partly due to having at least some of the timpani in the side boxes, and some small errors of orchestral intonation, which a longer run would I'm sure put paid to. The only other musical problem was Strauss': the last act seemed, in the words of my musicologist husband Simon McVeigh, 'one composer in search of a peroration'...

RICHARD STRAUSS

COVENT GARDEN

LONDON

UNITED KINGDOM