Richard Strauss: Die Liebe der Danae - Salzburger Festspiele 2016 [Blu-ray]

Richard Strauss’ penultimate, satirically mythological opera Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae, after a draft by Hugo von Hoffmansthal.

The Wiener Philharmoniker play under the baton of Franz Welser-Möst, under whom they “conveyed the glittering colors and lyrical intricacies of Strauss’s late score” (NY Times).

Krassimira Stoyanova, who is a regular fixture at the Salzburg Festival, is heading a truly supreme cast and emerges as the “one in a thousand, the true Strauss lyric-dramatic soprano who can soar and swoop, working miracles on phrases that never stop coming” (The Artsdesk).

Bass-Baritone Tomasz Konieczny, “sings this Jupiter almost unsurpassably” (FAZ), he “is so vocally majestic that Danae’s choice of Midas seems implausible” (Financial Times).

Alvis Hermanis’ colourful production brings oriental flair to the Salzach, his “staging was spectacular above all else” (Opera Today).

“Die Liebe der Danae” is narrowly linked to the Festival’s rich history. Due to conditions during World War II, the Salzburg Festival, which had commissioned the opera for summer 1944, couldn’t give the public premiere. Instead only a single dress rehearsal, attended by Strauss himself, was performed for an invited audience. Thereafter, the opera was staged in Salzburg only twice and very seldom anywhere else in the world.

“Once more, this very rarely presented opera returned successfully on stage, leaving the audience with unforgettable impressive images embedded in soft romantic sound.“