Kiri Te Kanawa stars as the Countess in this last of Richard Strauss 's operas, written when he was 77 and first staged in Munich in 1942 (the performances started early so that audiences could get home before the nightly air raids began). Her performance in this recent San Francisco Opera production was showered with critical acclaim.
The Los Angeles Times said: "The cast is dominated by the radiant Kiri Te Kanawa as the Countess Madeleine, gracious but never precious, she sustains the essential erotic allure.
Set In the salon of a chateau near Paris, Capriccio dramatises the age-old musical debate about the importance of words versus music in opera.
The Countess embodies opera Itself, as she endeavours to choose between her two ardent suitors, the poet Olivier and the composer Flamand.
During rehearsals for the 1942 production, the librettist Clemens Krauss urged the singers to employ better diction, saying: "If no one understands a word, the opera is meaningless." To which Strauss was heard to mutter: "Well, if a little bit of my music is heard now and again, I shan't raise any objection!"
San Francisco Opera Orchestra conductor Donald Runnicles
Stage director Stephen Lawless / Directed for television by Peter Maniura
KIRI TE KANAWA'S KIND OFDAY: page