Strauss thought that Die Liebe der Danae would be his last opera (he was 76 when he completed it in 1940) and ordered that it should not be performed until at least two years after the war; he expected the premiere to be posthumous. Fate was kinder to him – he lived to write Capriccio, an epilogue to his life’s work – than to his penultimate opera. Against his better judgement it was rehearsed and given a single (private) performance in Salzburg in August 1944, by which time Hitler’s decree of ‘total war’ had closed all other theatres in Germany and Austria. The true premiere was indeed post-humous, in 1952, and Danae has been rarely heard since, even Strauss’s warmest admirers concluding (like Norman Del Mar in his biography) that ‘it does not rate a very high place, despite some beautiful moments’.
In writing what he thought would be his operatic testament Strauss was perhaps not too concerned with everyday practicalities. Not only are the three principal roles (Danae, Jupiter and Midas) exceptionally demanding but at least seven of the others need singers of the front rank. Danae’s maid Xanthe, for example, appears only relatively briefly in Act 1, but she and Danae sing a duet requiring soaring agility from both of them, and it is the ‘second’ soprano who gets the more exposed high D flat! (fortunately Lisa Saffer is quite equal to it). Joseph Gregor’s libretto, based on an idea floated years before by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, is confused and ungainly. Both plots – Hofmannsthal envisaged a humorous fusion of Danae (visited by Jupiter as a shower of gold) and Midas (of the golden touch) – are effectively over by the close of Act 2. But even those who disparage the opera agree that its greatest glories are in Act 3. For all these reasons Danae is probably a ‘festival opera’ to be staged only when its near-impossible demands can be met (eight scene changes and a deal of lavish spectacle) and when a sympathetic audience can be guaranteed.
In fact that audience would need to make few allowances; for Gregor, not for Strauss. Danae contains, of course, as many pages of the mixture as before. But Strauss was obviously eager to demonstrate that he had not run out of new strings to his bow. Act 1, for example, has a great richness of complex ensemble writing, with two quartets on stage (of Jupiter’s former lovers and their husbands) as well as several choral groupings. Hofmannsthal’s elaborate conceit caused Gregor a great deal of trouble but gave Strauss opportunities, seized with great glee, to combine Offenbach-like flippancy with his love for Greek mythology. Jupiter is in effect a Wotan with four irritatingly good-humoured Frickas (they have a scene together which is the precise equivalent of the ‘Rondeau des metamorphoses’ in Orphee aux enfers) but when he renounces Danae to Midas he becomes a nobly benign Wotan. Midas is at first his rebellious Loge (later that role is taken, but now an opera-bouffe Loge, by Mercury – you see what I mean about extravagant casting). But when Midas welcomes Danae to a life of true love and poverty at the beginning of Act 3 he becomes a tenor Barak, most movingly. And Danae herself is the last of Strauss’s portraits of his wife Pauline: headstrong, unreasonable, totally adorable.
As Strauss’s valedictory self-distilled quintessence, Danae ideally needs a cast soaked in his style who have learned this opera’s exceptionally complex web of thematic cross-reference through long weeks of rehearsal. That can’t be provided by a live recording of a concert performance. That this cast do so amazingly well is partly due to Leon Botstein’s sharp ear for Straussian sound and his passionate conviction that Danae is a masterpiece. But though Flanigan’s soprano may be a little shallow her feeling for long line is admirable. Coleman-Wright’s over-careful German diction threatens to overstate Jupiter’s hauteur at the expense of his ardour, but in the crucial scenes of Act 3 he produces noble, sustained tone. Smith is a most characterful Midas, the fact that his voice is a little less ringing than the role demands making him even more likeable. Lewis shouts rather, but that is Strauss’s fault: whenever Pollux appears everyone else on stage yells at him. There are no disappointments in the more-than-secondary roles, nor in the recording, save that at times it focuses on the singers at the expense of the orchestra.
Strauss said that if not a first-class composer he was a first-rate second-class one. Danae is first-rate second-class Strauss, rising to first-class in Act 3 (long solo scenes for all three principals, three wonderful duets, the prevailing mood radiant serenity). It presents aspects of his wit and cunning craft that you won’t find elsewhere. This immensely enjoyable performance rehabilitates Strauss’s ‘lively mythology’ at last, and I am profoundly grateful