Richard Strauss: Capriccio a joint Production of the National Philharmonic Orchestra and the Palace of Arts Bartók Béla National Concert Hall R. Strauss: Capriccio – a conversation piece for music in one act, op. 85 Director: Rebekka Stanzel Set design, costumes: Markus Pysall Featuring: National Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir (chorusmaster: Mátyás Antal) Conductor: Zoltán Kocsis The National Philharmonic Orchestra has added new colour to the Hungarian concert scene in recent years by periodically presenting audiences with a number of unusual operatic works. This strand has been strengthened further in the ensemble’s concert programme for the 2012/13 season, as these works now amount to almost a separate series within the traditional concert schedule. Capriccio is the final opera composed by Richard Strauss, assigned a special category the composer himself defined as “Konversationsstück für Musik,” a conversation piece for music. In this single-act opera, Strauss utilised the musical forms fashionable at the end of the 18th century in an extraordinarily virtuoso manner: octets, complex groupings of instruments and fugues are heard within it, while at the same time the whole is characterised by the restraint and moderation of the Viennese Classical period. The idea for the libretto came from Stefan Zweig, although it was eventually developed by Clemens Krauss, the conductor of the première in Munich in 1942, together with the composer himself, who was by then almost 80 years old. In the opera set in 1775 in a château near Paris, the poet Olivier and the composer Flamand have each produced a separate piece of work for the countess’s birthday, and – before they can collaborate on a work together – they ask the lady the question: Which is the greater art, poetry or music? However, the countess can no more decide between the two rival suitors for her affections than she can separate words from music. “If you favour one, you lose the other,” she says, before setting off for dinner humming to herself…