Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow) which Richard Strauss composed with his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal, received an unenthusiastic premiere in Vienna on 10th October 1919. Hofmannsthal’s complicated and heavily symbolic libretto was cited as one of the problems. However, it is now a standard part of the operatic […]

Hans Hotter (1909–2003) was 64 when he recorded two recital LPs for Decca, here coupled as a 2CD set. One of the rare singers to achieve equal eminence in Wagner and in Lieder, the singer’s voluminous bass-baritone, at once majestic and profoundly human, was in its autumn. Yet, the sense of detail, of characterisation, he […]