Die Frau ohne Schatten - Opernhaus Zürich (2014) - Die Frau ohne Schatten - Opernhaus Zürich (2014)

Description

Richard Strauss’s The Woman without a Shadow is one of the most challenging pieces in the operatic repertoire. The work demands a huge orchestra, and five dramatic main roles must be filled. In our revival, Evelyn Herlitzius, a great interpreter of Strauss and Wagner, will be singing the exacting role of the dyer’s wife. Emily Magee and Roberto Saccà, first-class artists who are highly familiar performers in Zurich, will perform the roles of Empress and Emperor. Our General Music Director Fabio Luisi, who has a special passion for the works of Richard Strauss, will conduct this revival production. Director David Pountney interprets this mysterious fairy-tale opera, which Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal wrote during the First World War, as a “study of four figures in search of their own humanity”.
Since marrying the human Emperor, the daughter of Keikobad, King of the Spirits, has belonged neither to the Spirit Realm nor the human world, for she has no shadow. In order to become entirely human, with the help of the nurse she descends to earth, where she intends to buy the shadow of the dyer’s wife, who lives with her husband Barak in poverty…

More information is available on the operahouse's official website.