Performer: Miles Mykkanen

Presented without staging, Seattle Opera’s concert Daphne places Strauss’ extreme vocal demands and saturated orchestral writing in sharp relief, offering a high-risk encounter with a rarely heard late opera.

Great singing and imaginative spectacle cannot turn an ambitious operatic premiere into a convincing whole. 

Inspired by Annie Ernaux’s The Years, Philip Venables’ new opera widens the canvas to take in the whole of Europe’s postwar generation.