Die schweigsame Frau was first presented in 1935; Hitler and Goebbels refused to attend because Stefan Zweig, the librettist, was a Jew and Strauss had restored his name to the program after the Nazis had insisted it be removed. It was a great success but was withdrawn for obvious reasons after three performances. It was not played again until 1946.
The opera is a comedy, and despite its large scoring (no Ariadne, this), you’re never overwhelmed by it. Except for being more human and tender, the plot is almost identical to Donizetti’s Don Pasquale: old man is duped by nephew and friend (a barber in this case) into “marrying” young woman he thinks is quiet (the “silent woman” of the title) who really is married to his nephew; she immediately becomes noisy and difficult; they “divorce”, and everyone is happy.
The opera has everything–almost Rossinian crescendos, a gorgeous love duet, fine confrontations, real tunes–and this performance is close to perfect. Kurt Moll, as Sir Morosus, who only wants quiet, is colorful and blustering without ever resorting to buffo exaggeration, and his range covers the high F-sharp and the low D-flat required. The nephew here is Deon van der Walt, a light tenor who nonetheless can sing out. If he doesn’t have the sheer beauty of tone of Fritz Wunderlich on DG, he’s just as colorful and creates just as vivid a character.
The barber, Eike Wilm-Schulte, is a light baritone, not as outgoing as Hermann Prey (DG again) but superb in his own understated way. And Cyndia Seiden outsings all three competing sopranos (Gueden, Scovotti, Grist). When she has to be noisy and shrewish, she is, and when tender, she makes the most beautiful sounds you’ve ever heard. Her love duet with van der Walt, which she concludes on an endless pianissimo high D-flat (while Sir Morosus repeats the note octaves below), is breathtaking. The rest of the cast performs with verve and playfulness, always singing, never mugging. The underestimated Pinchas Steinberg leads the Munich forces in a reading that for the first time made me love this opera–as Steinberg clearly does. The volume needs to be turned up a bit, but otherwise the recording is terrific, certainly better than competing versions, two of which were recorded live (and the third, under Janowski on EMI, is just not very good). An absolute must.
