XL Cover Story

Strauss found fame with untame material

So here's a guy who writes an opera about a teenage girl who dances naked in front of her stepfather so she can make out with to the severed head of John the Baptist. Next, there's a little piece that involves a woman who murders her husband with the aid of her lover, then is herself -- along with her lover -- killed by her son at the urging of her daughter. That's followed by a work that opens with a musically explicit sex scene between a middle-aged wife and a teenage boy (played by a woman), followed by three hours of convoluted plot that relies heavily on cross-dressing.

The person who wrote these things had to be a longhaired out-of-this-world romantic who smoked questionable substances, right?

Wrong. The three operas -- "Salome," "Elektra" and "Der Rosenkavalier" (and 12 others) -- were composed by Richard Strauss, and he wore his hair short, always liked the idea of making lots of money, acted more like a burgomaster than a music master, and never (as far as we know) smoked anything stronger than cigars.

Strauss was born in Munich on June 11, 1864. His father, Franz Strauss, was a composer and Germany's most celebrated horn player. His mother, Josephine Pschorr, came from a family of brewers. This combination of artistry and bourgeoisie was transmitted to young Richard, and the dichotomy between his personal life and the style and content of many of his works has caused him to be described as "an enigma."

Strauss began taking piano lessons at the age of 5, started composing at 6 and then entered the Royal Grammar School in 1874 to obtain a classical education. In an interesting foreshadowing of later events, during the time he was there he wrote a short choral piece setting a portion of Sophocles' "Electra."

The year 1882 saw the premiere of the young composer's earliest surviving major work, the Serenade in E-flat for 13 wind instruments. Impressed with the piece, conductor Hans von Bülow asked Strauss to write another, similar, composition (the Suite for Winds in B-flat) which Strauss later conducted; and so began his dual careers as conductor and composer.

Strauss was influenced and aided by many people, but there were two in particular who played major roles in Strauss's life and career. He met the first in 1887 (the second will come on the scene in 1900), when he started giving singing lessons to the eldest daughter of one Major-General Adolf de Ahna. Her name was Pauline, and she proved to have considerable talent as an operatic soprano.

Over the next seven years, Strauss began his rise to prominence, producing the symphonic poems "Macbeth," "Don Juan" and "Death and Transfiguration," working as a musical assistant at Bayreuth with Cosima Wagner and taking Liszt's old position as Kapellmeister at Weimar. He also conducted Pauline de Ahna in "Tristan und Isolde," "Tannhaüser," and his own first opera, "Guntram." It was during the "Tannhaüser" run that he proposed to Pauline. She accepted, and in September 1894 they were wed.

Pauline Strauss was strong-willed and never reluctant to speak her mind or to remind her husband that she was the daughter of a major general and he was a descendant of brewers. But she also kept him on artistic track, since he was frequently just as happy to be playing cards with his friends as writing great music. In his "Lives of the Great Composers," Harold Schonberg writes, " 'Richard, go compose!' (Pauline) would scream, and Strauss would shrug his shoulders, leave his game of skat (his favorite pastime), and go to the workroom."

Richard loved Pauline completely, writing some of his finest songs for her, sending her tender letters when he was on the road, and smoothing any feathers her outspokenness may have ruffled. She loved him as well, always making sure he had the right socks, shirts and underwear packed when he was traveling. She seemed genuinely to admire his music, and sometimes appeared in recital with him, singing the songs he had written for her. They had one son, Franz, and never during their 55-year marriage was there even a hint of infidelity.

In 1903, Strauss saw two plays produced by Max Reinhardt in Berlin: Oscar Wilde's "Salome" and Hugo von Hofmannsthal's "Elektra." The first, when transmuted by Strauss into an opera, was a scandalizing success. Hofmannsthal, knowing that the composer had seen and admired his play, prevailed upon Strauss to work with him in making "Elektra," too, into an opera.

Strauss had first met the Viennese poet and playwright in 1900, when Hofmannsthal (our second major player in Strauss' career) approached him with an idea for a ballet. The idea was politely rejected, but in 1905, after the failures of his operas "Guntram" and "Feuersnot" and the success of "Salome," Strauss agreed to collaborate with Hofmannsthal and made the connection that would produce six operas (along with a ballet and some incidental music) over the next 25 years.

"Elektra," in its own way as much a shocker in 1908 as "Salome" had been three years earlier, was the first result of the collaboration. It was followed in 1911 by "Der Rosenkavalier," which took Strauss and Hofmannsthal in a quite different direction: a lengthy, loving, melody-filled comedy of Viennese manners.

The Strauss-Hofmannsthal operas that succeeded "Der Rosenkavalier" -- "Ariadne auf Naxos," "Die Frau Ohne Schatten," "Die Ägyptische Helena" and "Arabella" -- have all moved into, out of and back into the repertory over time. All have received relatively recent performances at major opera houses and exist in complete recordings on CD; but it was with "Salome," "Elektra" and "Der Rosenkavalier" that Strauss made lasting marks in the world of opera.

In 1947, two years before his death, Richard Strauss described himself as "a first-class second-rate composer." That's far too harsh an assessment, even from a cigar-smoking, card-playing burgher, for a talent that produced the ravishing melodies, searing drama and profound human insights revealed in his finest works -- works such as the one that will grace the stage of Bass Concert Hall over the next two weekends.