This magnificent volume was written by the greatest (then-)living expert on Richard Strauss. Rudolf Hartmann, a personal friend of the composer, himself produced three first performances and was for many years the Director of the Bavarian State Opera, Munich, considered the home of Strauss opera. In 1948 Strauss himself wrote to Hartmann, “The book about directing and staging opera still remains to be written and that must be done by Rudolf Hartmann, the Stanislavsky and the Reinhardt of opera… So, to work, begin!” With this book – unique in the literature on Strauss – Hartmann has at long last complied with the maestro’s request.

The volume treats all of Strauss’s dramatic works – fifteen operas and two ballets – from the first performance to those of today. Some three hundred illustrations, many of them never before published, comprise a graphic survey of the development of sets at well-known international performances. Wherever possible, the illustrations show the first performance and premiere as well as the work’s evolution through various stages: the period after World War I, shortly before 1933 (when Strauss was about seventy years old), and after the Second World War.

The history of the individual works is based on a thorough examination of the sources, some hitherto unknown. Hartmann frequently quotes both the composer and the librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The producers’ and librettists’ directions and comments illustrate the tasks involved in staging a work. A short synopsis of each work helps to make it comprehensible to the reader. Written as only an experienced producer could write them, they are lucid and lively.

Oxford University Press, 1981, large format Hardcover