Carnegie Hall, NY; March 23, 2023—Richard Strauss famously said “I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.” Vaguely opaque but also self-critical and self-praiseworthy at once, nowhere is it more clear than in the composer’s late “bucolic tragedy” Daphne. If you’re looking for action and something of a plot you can relate to, you’re in the wrong opera: there’s little action and the mythological plot tries the patience.
Daphne, daughter of the river god Peneios and earth goddess Gaea, is an innocent girl enamored of the sun, flora, and nature in general, as her parentage might explain. Leukippos, a sweet, local shepherd, flirts with her; she has little interest in romance. Apollo shows up disguised as a shepherd in the midst of a Dionysian feast; the lovely Daphne rejects his advances in a confrontation, and he spitefully strikes her innocent suitor, Leukippos, dead. Daphne grieves and Apollo is so smitten by her beauty and empathy that he turns Daphne into a laurel tree.
Daphne’s monologues, the showdown between Apollo and Leukippos (for two potent tenors), and the “Transformation Scene” are as stunning as anything you’ll ever hear in the opera house. The Transformation Scene in particular, ridiculous as it seems on the page, is transcendent and leaves the head spinning. It is in competition for the most beautiful episode in all of Strauss. There may otherwise be a paucity of melodies and some dry spots but they are interstitial. It is gorgeously orchestrated and by the time the opera is over, you might be convinced that it’s greater than it is. At any rate, it’s most certainly worth hearing and getting to know. It’s almost a pity that Strauss had already composed Elektra, Salome, Die Frau ohne Schatten, and Der Rosenkavalier: Expectations of genius are hard to match.
Leon Botstein, who led the American Symphony Orchestra and Bard Festival Chorale (the latter trained by James Bagell), had quite a casting chore ahead of him. If the right soprano and two tenors–one lyric, one heroic–can be found, Daphne can be a knockout in a quite different way from Strauss’ greater operas.
As we know, Strauss rarely wrote for tenor and when he did it was very difficult music, almost as if he did not understand the tenor voice. Bacchus (in Ariadne) is thankless; the Emperor in Frau is usually an exhibit of strain and a tertiary (at best) character. The Italian tenor in Rosenkavalier has a glorious four-minute aria. Period. In contrast, Apollo has close to 30 minutes of strenuous, forte singing requiring dozens of forays above the staff and plenty of As and Bs, not normally a requirement for a heldentenor. In addition to that, his aria, “Jeden heiligen Morgen”, in which he describes his daily chariot ride to light up the world, is as beautiful as it is thrilling. And Leukippos, murdered by Apollo, sings one appealing phrase after another, often with full orchestra–even beginning a phrase on a high C.
The Leukippos, Aaron Blake, has sung Tamino, but his clear, focused voice seemed capable of larger roles, and his Leukippos was youthful, ringing, faithful to the text, and splendid, including that high C. Kyle van Schoonhaven, who has sung the voice-killing Rienzi, is still an “on-the-rise” heldentenor, and if he is guilty of anything as Apollo, it is of pacing himself too carefully early in the opera, perhaps fearful for the later Olympic-like trial. He succeeded in the last 40 minutes of the opera in creating a stentorian Apollo–self-certain, arrogant, adoring Daphne to a point of fetishizing her, and blasting out the big notes. Let’s hear more of him.
And then there’s Daphne. I’ve heard several (mostly on records), and Jana McIntyre is the lightest and most girlish. (Lucia Popp and Hilde Guden come close; June Anderson lacks fragility, and Renee Fleming is too mannered and mature.) Her highly placed, light coloratura voice happily had no trouble cutting through the orchestra; she never missed a note (those big Bs and Cs!) and recited the text with theatricality. Coy with Leukippos, first fascinated and then outraged by Apollo, and singing for long, long stretches without a break, McIntyre is just lovely–very much the operative word.
Daphne’s parents don’t have much to sing, but their music is impressive. The dark, authoritarian tones of Stefan Egerstrom sounded like the low tones of an organ and flowed easily, like the river he represents. Gaea is wisely scored for contralto, and Ronnita Miller’s voice was nothing if not earthy, rich and dark, down to a low E-flat. Two flirty Maids, Marlen Nahhas and Ashley Dixon, were a reminder of how much Strauss loved the high female voice, and four shepherds, Kenneth Overton, Jack Cottrell, Paul Holmes, and Blake Austin Brooks offered fine harmonies.
A note: Strauss originally scored the Transformation of Daphne into a tree for a grand, 15-minute chorus, and as a curtain raiser, Botstein and the Bard Chorale offered a fine performance of the difficult nine-part work. Composer Clemens Krauss told Strauss that a chorus showing up and singing to a tree would be absurd, so Strauss composed a long solo for Daphne, which fades away and just her wordless melismatic melody, with a solo oboe, is left, seemingly floating on air. It’s mesmerizing.
Botstein led a performance that was stunning, with just a few glitches from the brass. The beautiful score ended and the Carnegie Hall audience was left with a silent moment. “First class, second rate….” One wonders what that meant.
