Daphne Blooms in New York
Strauss’s opera prizes innocence in a time of chaos, beauty over disorder, and the transcendence of suffering. Daphne is precisely the work that could lend itself to the revitalization of an opera company.
Strauss’s opera prizes innocence in a time of chaos, beauty over disorder, and the transcendence of suffering. Daphne is precisely the work that could lend itself to the revitalization of an opera company.
Warlikowski’s productions tend toward the visceral. His exploration of the opera’s mythological content led him to profound meditations on the fluidity of space and time, of the real and the unreal.
If the visuals left us baffled and disappointed, the musical performance reached toward the stars. The superb soprano Marlis Petersen delivered a sensitive, nuanced Marschallin that captured the character’s emotional dilemmas with a pathos unseen since Renée Fleming gave up the role five years ago.