Feuersnot

thereby all the fires of the town are extinguished the piece is rather too long for a short opera and too short for a full-length one but the text is rich in word-play punning satire double meanings and topical allusions interlarded with biting reflection on the manner in which munich had once turned against wagner and on the trouble the benighted burghers would have in similarly ridding themselves of the troublesome There is not a little of the real Strauss in the music, though at that, less than one might expect from the composer of Till Ovenspiegel and Ein Heldenleben, which already lay some distance in the past.

Feuersnot was first staged at the Dresden Opera on November 21, 1901, under the leadership of Ernst von Zürch, and the consequence was that for years to come, Strauss's operatic premieres took place in that gracious city.

we now come into view of a milestone of modern music drama in nineteen o two strauss attended a performance of oscar wilde's play salome at max reinhold's kleines theater in berlin gertrude eisold had the title role the swiss musicologist willie schuh relates that the composer after the performance was accosted by his friend heinrich greenfeld who remarked strauss this would be an operatic subject for you i am already composing it was the reply and the composer went on to tell the viennese writer anton linder had already sent me the play and offered to make an opera text of it for me upon my agreement he sent me some cleverly versified opening scenes which did not however inspire me with an urge to composition till one day the question shaped itself in my mind why do i not compose at once without further preliminaries be sure it's the princess and from then on it was not difficult to cleanse the piece of literature so that it has become a thoroughly fine libretto necessity gave me a really exotic scheme of harmony which showed itself especially in odd heterogeneous cadences having the effect of changeable silk it was the desire for the sharpest kind of individual characterization that led me to bitonality one can look upon this as a solitary experience as applied in a special case but not recommended for imitation difficulties began with von schuch's first piano rehearsals a number of singers sought to give back their parts till karl bryan shamed them by answering when asked how he was progressing with the role of herod i already know it by heart a little later the salome frau wittlich threatened to go on strike because of the taxing part and the massive orchestra soon too she began to rail against perversity and impiety of the opera refuse to do this or that because i am a decent woman and drove the stage manager almost frantic strauss remarked that her figure was not really suited to the sixteen-year-old princess with the isolde voice and complained that in subsequent performances her dance and her actions with joachimann's head overstepped all bounds of propriety and taste In Berlin, according to Strauss, the Kaiser would permit the performance of the work only after Intendant von Hülsen had the idea of indicating at the close by a sudden shining of the morning star the coming of the three holy kings.

Nevertheless, Wilhelm II remarked to Hülsen, I am sorry that Strauss composed this Salome.