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An affirmation of the importance of cultural values in the face of the abyss, or Richard Strauss fiddling while Europe burnt? Tim Albery's production leaves it to us to decide.

Vienna State Opera offered a solid production in which precious little gleamed.

Camilla Nylund’s rich, ample voice bloomed in the glorious setting of the sonnet, cosseted by burnished horn playing, in Strauss' unsurpassed operatic farewell to the soprano voice.

Strauss' 'conversation piece' of an opera is given a warmly sympathetic production with the musical rewards coming as much from the pit as the stage.

Maestro Leo Hussain’s translucent rendition of the score made Capriccio the crowning glory of the Santa Fe Opera Season.  

Late in the opera, in the calm that settles after a vaudeville of ballet dancers and Italian singers, Fleming’s poise pervades the Countess’s closing rumination over love and the nature of art. It’s a concert piece nestled in Capriccio’s narrative bustle, and to hear Fleming sing it is to be reminded of her talents as a communicator in music within and beyond the opera stage.

Vienna is a nostalgic town, and in few places is the past clung onto more tightly than at the State Opera, where a Tosca created for Renata Tebaldi has been pressed creakingly into service for over 55 years now.

Read our review of John Cox's production of Strauss­' Capriccio in its 2011 broadcast from the Met Opera in New York.