Opera Feuersnot Program Notes, Sheet Music and Recordings

Program Notes & Analysis

A "Revenge" Opera and a Pagan Parable

To understand Feuersnot, one must first understand Guntram. In 1894, Richard Strauss, the 30-year-old enfant terrible of the symphonic poem (Don Juan, Tod und Verklärung), was ready to claim his throne as the "next Wagner." His first opera, Guntram, was a "neo-Wagnerian," high-minded, medieval tragedy of love and redemption. He presented it to his "hometown," Munich, a city he regarded as a conservative, provincial backwater. The orchestra was rebellious, the singers were baffled, and the audience laughed. The failure was total and humiliating. Strauss was enraged, writing to his father that the city was "artistically... a pigsty." For seven years, he did not write another opera. Feuersnot, which premiered in 1901, was his spectacular, arrogant, and brilliant revenge. He and his librettist, Ernst von Wolzogen, crafted a work that was, in Strauss’s own words, a "jocular little piece of vengeance... a trifle to exorcise the spirits." It is a "satirical self-portrait," a one-act "sung poem" (Singgedicht) that is both a biting allegory and a masterpiece of 20th-century orchestration.

The Genius vs. The Philistines

The libretto is a brilliant, multi-layered "inside joke." On the surface, it’s a medieval Flemish legend, set on Midsummer's Eve. But the allegory is razor-thin. A "great sorcerer" named Richard (Kunrad) comes to Munich (the stuffy, old-fashioned city) to claim his "place." He is snubbed by the "philistines" (the critics and townspeople) and humiliated by a girl (Diemut, representing the Munich opera public). In revenge, he (the artist-hero) uses his "magic" to plunge the entire city into darkness and cold, a "famine of fire." He then delivers a long, self-serving monologue, declaring that the city’s light will only be restored when it "repents" and "honors" its true, spurned artist, Richard Strauss himself. The opera is, from start to finish, the most audacious, egotistical, and self-referential "revenge plot" in operatic history. It is Strauss, the ultimate master of irony, laughing at his critics by using the most complex, modern orchestra imaginable to tell them they are all idiots.

A Post-Wagnerian Comedy

The failure of Guntram taught Strauss that he was not, in fact, the "next Wagner." Guntram had been a "slavish" imitation of Tannhäuser and Parsifal, full of long, "philosophical" monologues. Feuersnot is the opposite. It is Strauss finding his own voice. He rejects Wagner's "mythic" seriousness and "endless melody" in favor of something lighter, faster, and more "classical." The score is a brilliant return to opera buffa, but on a colossal scale. It is filled with waltzes, folk songs, and children's rhymes. He is intentionally, and cheekily, thumbing his nose at the "heavy" German tradition. He is trying, in a sense, to be the "German Verdi," writing a "20th-century Falstaff "—an opera that is fast, witty, contrapuntally brilliant, and "anti-Romantic" in its spirit, even as it uses the largest Romantic orchestra yet seen. It is a direct precursor to the "neo-classical" conversations of Ariadne auf Naxos and the "farcical" waltzes of Der Rosenkavalier.

The "Symphonic" Score

The true star of Feuersnot is the orchestra. This is Strauss the "symphonic poet" (Don Juan, Till Eulenspiegel) at the height of his powers. He uses a gargantuan orchestra, not for Wagnerian "weight," but for color, speed, and satire. The score is a dazzling, restless, and incredibly difficult "perpetuum mobile." It is a "symphony" with voices. The opening scene, depicting the "children's games" of Midsummer's Eve, is a masterpiece of complex, polyphonic chaos, a direct ancestor of the "crowd" scenes in Debussy’s La Mer or Stravinsky’s Petrushka. He uses the massive brass section not for "fate" motifs, but for "slapstick" punchlines. He uses a huge percussion battery to imitate the "crackle" of the fires. And, in the opera's famous, extended "love scene" (the Feuerszene), the orchestra itself performs the "magic," a long, post-Tristan crescendo that builds from a single spark into an overwhelming, "orgasmic" explosion of sound as the "fires" (both literal and erotic) are "re-lit" across the city.

A "Pagan" Ritual

The opera’s subtitle is A Midsummer Night's Pageant. This is crucial. The librettist, Wolzogen, was a leader in the "cabaret" scene and a "neo-pagan," obsessed with the idea that Christianity had "suppressed" Germany's "true," "life-affirming" pagan spirit. The opera is, in fact, a "Nietzschean" parable. The "philistine" townspeople of Munich are "cold" and "sexless" because they are repressed. The hero, Kunrad, is not just an "artist"; he is a "pagan" sorcerer, a "Dionysian" force of nature. His "crime" is "stealing a kiss" (an act of "free love"), and the "punishment" (the extinguishing of the fires) is a symbol of "impotence." The opera’s notorious, scandalous climax is a "public" demand for "free love." Kunrad, from his balcony, announces that the "famine of fire" will only end when the "heat" from a "virgin's body" restores the "spark." It is the most audacious, "Freudian" metaphor in all of Strauss's work, a call for a "sexual revolution" to "re-heat" the "cold," "sterile" world of art.

A "Revenge" of Musical Quotations

The score is not just "original"; it is a "collage" of musical "in-jokes" and "self-parody." Strauss is, literally, "thumbing his nose" at his critics. The score is famously packed with quotations. When the townspeople can't light their fires, they try to sing a "magic" spell—which is a clumsy, failed quotation from Richard Wagner’s Die Meistersinger (a "prize song" that doesn't work). Throughout the opera, Strauss quotes himself, littering the score with motifs from his "failed" Guntram and his "successful" tone poems. He is, in effect, saying, "You idiots in Munich didn't recognize my genius in Guntram? Well, here it is again!" This use of "self-quotation" as an act of "ironic" autobiography was revolutionary. It was a technique that Richard Wagner had used in Die Meistersinger (quoting Tristan as a joke), but Strauss makes it the entire point of the opera. He is, in a sense, the first "post-modern" composer, using the "scraps" of musical history to build a "new" and "satirical" work. His great pupil, Gustav Mahler, would later use this same "collage" technique (mixing "high" symphonies with "low" marches) to similar, "world-breaking" effect.

The Characters: A Battle of Wills

Because this is an "anti-Wagnerian" opera, the "hero" is not a "heldentenor." He is a baritone. This was a radical choice. Kunrad, the "artist-hero," is a "baritone," the voice of "speech" and "intellect" (like Mozart's Don Giovanni or Verdi's Falstaff). He is a "charismatic" talker, a "master of ceremonies." His opponent, the "heroine" Diemu, is a classic, fiery Strauss-ian soprano. Her vocal line is demanding, soaring, and filled with "capricious" rage and, later, "erotic" lyricism. The opera is, at its heart, a "battle of the sexes," a "shrew-taming" comedy, but one where the "taming" is "magical" and "public." The real "star" of the opera, however, is the chorus. Strauss writes for the massive chorus (especially the children's chorus in the opening) with a complexity and dexterity that rivals the orchestra. The "people of Munich" are a single, multi-headed "character"—a "gullible," "fickle," and "stupid" mob, just as they had been in Wagner’s Meistersinger.

A Brilliant, Obscure "Trifle"

Feuersnot was a moderate success at its 1901 premiere in Dresden (where Strauss was now the "king"), and it was championed by his friend, Gustav Mahler, who conducted its Vienna premiere. But it has never found a permanent place in the repertoire. Why? First, it is notoriously difficult to stage and sing. Second, its "joke" is so "local" and "autobiographical" that it is often lost on audiences who are not "in on" the Guntram failure or the "Munich philistine" satire. Third, and most importantly, it was completely "eclipsed" by the two "monsters" that followed it: Salome (1905) and Elektra (1909). Those operas were "real" revolutions, works of such "new," "dark," and "atonal" power that they made Feuersnot, with its waltzes and jokes, seem like a "frivolous" trifle. But it is, in fact, a "trifle" of pure genius, a "missing link" between Verdi's Falstaff and Strauss’s own Der Rosenkavalier. It is a work of breathtaking confidence, a 90-minute "wink" from a composer who knew, even after a "failure," that he was the most brilliant musical mind in the world.

The Story of the Opera

A Single Act: The Midsummer's Eve in Munich

Scene: A square in medieval Munich, on Midsummer's Eve (the Johannisnacht). The children of the city are running wild, collecting firewood for the great "Solstice" bonfires. They sing and chant, demanding wood from the citizens. They knock on the door of the old, reclusive sorcerer, Kunrad the Alchymist. The Burgomaster, Sentlinger, and his daughter, Diemu, watch the festivities. Kunrad, to everyone's surprise, emerges from his house. He is not a "scary" old man, but a "charming," "handsome," and "charismatic" baritone. He announces he is "abandoning" his "dark" magic and "joining" the human race. He "donates" his entire house-full of books and scrolls to the children for their bonfire. The "philistine" townspeople are suspicious of this "new" man.

Diemu, the most beautiful girl in town, is handing out "Solstice" cakes. Kunrad, in a bold, "heat-of-the-moment" gesture, seizes her and kisses her full on the lips. The town is scandalized. Diemu, publicly humiliated and furious, vows revenge. She "tricks" Kunrad. She pretends to have forgiven him and, from her balcony, she lowers a large "basket" (like a dumbwaiter), telling him she will "haul him up" for a "secret" rendezvous. Kunrad, overjoyed, gets in the basket. Diemu, in a "counter-assault," hauls him only halfway up... and leaves him dangling in the air, a "laughingstock" for the entire town.

Kunrad, betrayed and humiliated, is now enraged. He uses his "real" magic. In a voice of thunder, he "curses" the city. He calls on his "master" to "extinguish" all light and fire, as a "punishment" for this "cold-hearted" town that scorns "true passion." In an instant, every fire, every bonfire, every candle, and every lamp in the entire city is extinguished. The town is plunged into total darkness and a "famine of fire" (a Feuersnot).

The people, terrified, beg him to "turn the lights back on." Kunrad, still dangling from the basket, delivers his great, "Nietzschean" monologue. He tells them he is a "sorcerer" of "love" who has been "rejected" by this "cold, Biedermeier, philistine" town. He announces that the "natural" order can only be restored by "natural" means. The "fire" will only return when the "heat" from the "body of a virgin" (Diemu) has "warmed" his "cold" hearth. He demands that Diemu be "given" to him. He is magically "lifted" into her room.

The stage is dark. The townspeople, "converted" by this "pagan" logic (and desperate to get their "heat" back), begin a "voyeuristic" chorus, urging Diemu to "do her duty" and "save the town." The opera's great orchestral interlude, the Feuerszene (Fire Scene), begins. It is a massive, "symphonic" crescendo, a "musical" depiction of the "love-making" in the room above. As the orchestra reaches its final, "ecstatic" climax, a "single, red flame" appears in Kunrad's window. In an instant, this "spark" "re-ignites" all the bonfires, all the lamps, and all the lights in the city. The opera ends in a blaze of light and a massive, joyous, C-major chorus, as the "enlightened" townspeople celebrate the "Master," Kunrad, who has "saved" them by "restoring" the "primal fire" of passion.