A New Era at the Berlin State Opera Begins With Strauss

Richard Strauss’s opera “Die Schweigsame Frau,” or “The Silent Woman,” was already a relic from a disappearing world by the time it was first performed.

In this rarely seen work from 1935, an old man longs for company but is enraged by bustle and noise. When a beloved nephew reveals that he has taken up with a troupe of performers, the man, Sir Morosus, disinherits him and vows to marry. The nephew, Henry, responds with an elaborate prank, tricking Morosus into a fake wedding.

The ostensible lesson: There is no such thing as a quiet wife.

Despite feminist progress at the time, the opera reprised stereotypes about women as nags; in a period of musical experimentation, it worked largely within traditional idioms. And it made withdrawal seem noble when engagement was urgent.

A year before the opera opened, its librettist, the eminent Jewish author Stefan Zweig, fled his home in Austria for London. After the premiere, it was quickly banned by the Nazi Party; Strauss was forced out of his post as president of the Reich Music Chamber even though he wrote an ingratiating letter to Hitler.

“Perhaps it sparkles too much with soul and wit for today’s world,” Strauss wrote about the opera in a letter. “But there is still the 21st century!”

Indeed. On Saturday, a new production of “Die Schweigsame Frau” will open at the Berlin State Opera. The event will be a first three times over: the first performance of the piece at the house, where Strauss worked regularly for 20 years and led over a thousand performances; the first new production overseen by Christian Thielemann as the company’s general music director; and Thielemann’s first time leading the opera after conducting most of Strauss’s other stage works.