Capriccio

by Richard Strauss
Konversationsstück für Musik in one act, 1942.
Libretto by the composer and Clemens Krauss,
on a subject suggested by Stefan Zweig and on the libretto by
Giovanni Battista Casti for Salieri's
Prima la musica e poi le parole (First the music and then the words).
First performance: Munich Bayerische Staatsoper, 28 October 1942.

CHARACTERS

In a château near Paris, about the year 1775, the birthday of Countess Madeleine is being celebrated. Her interests tend towards music, but her brother, the Count, favours rather poetry… and the actress Clairon. The entertainment to be given includes music by Flamand, a play by the poet Olivier and a theatrical piece by the whole company. Olivier and Flamand debate the relative merits of music and words.

Alone with the Countess, Olivier declares his love, while Flamand, returning with a setting of a sonnet translated from Ronsard by Olivier, now in turn declares his own love for the Countess.

It is the enthusiasm of the theatre director La Roche for the grandiose and spectacular in opera that leads Olivier and Flamand to collaborate on an opera, while the Countess herself is left at the end of the work still unable to decide between the poet and the composer, words or music.

Typical of the later period of Strauss's music, Capriccio opens with a string sextet, a prelude that takes the place of an overture. A later interlude provides another part of the work that may be heard outside the opera-house, with the intense final aria of the Countess, as she ponders the old dilemma.