A revelatory Frau ohne Schatten in Munich

By Hugo Shirley, 04 July 2017

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“a delicacy, laced with real visceral punch when necessary, that was a revelation”

Reviewed at Nationaltheater, Munich on 2 July 2017

Strauss R., Die Frau ohne Schatten

Bavarian State Opera

Kirill Petrenko, Conductor

Krzysztof Warlikowski, Director

Małgorzata Szczęśniak, Set Designer, Costume Designer

Ricarda Merbeth, Empress

Michaela Schuster, Nurse

Burkhard Fritz, Emperor

Wolfgang Koch, Barak, the Dyer

Elena Pankratova, Barak the Dyer's Wife

Elsa Benoit, The Voice of a Falcon, The First Maid

Okka von der Damerau, A Voice From Above

Paula Iancic, The Second Maid

Rachael Wilson, The Third Maid

Dean Power, The Hunchback, Barak's Brother

Christian Rieger, The One-Armed Man, Barak’s Brother

Tim Kuypers, The One-Eyed Man, Barak’s Brother

Sebastian Holecek, The Messenger of Keikobad

Bayerischer Staatsopernchor

Bayerisches Staatsorchester

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Hugo Shirley

Hugo Shirley is a Berlin-based writer and musicologist. He has written widely as a critic in the UK, including for The Spectator, the Financial Times and Daily Telegraph, and has held editorial posts at both Opera and Gramophone. He was editor of 30-Second Opera (Ivy Press, 2015) and has a PhD in musicology from King's College London, where his thesis focused on Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s Die Frau ohne Schatten.

Fairy Music: Petrenko conducts a revelatory Frau ohne Schatten in Munich