At Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Barrie Kosky stages Strauss's 'The Woman Without Shadow'

The Festival d'Aix-en-Provence presents Barrie Kosky's staging of Richard Strauss's complex opera, "The Woman Without Shadow." The production opens with a striking image: a rocking chair swaying in absolute darkness, overseen by a menacing nurse figure. The score's deep brass tones immediately establish an unsettling atmosphere, populated by lurking, simian-like silhouettes that transform the stage into a "fascinating laboratory of impulses."

Strauss began composing this opera in 1910, with its premiere occurring in 1919. Its creation was a lengthy process, spanning the profound upheaval of World War I. Although the libretto was conceived in the intellectual ferment of Vienna around 1911, the global conflict dramatically altered its conclusion.

The war's end infused the opera's finale with an almost utopian urgency: a celebration of human renewal and the continuity of life amidst the ruins of Europe. This thematic shift reflects the desire for rebuilding and hope in a continent scarred by conflict.