For the first time in 11 years, the Metropolitan Opera has revived what I consider to be one of its greatest productions in my lifetime.

Herbert Wernicke’s production of “Die Frau ohne Schatten” is simply one of the most sublime marriages of stage direction and opera in recent Met history.

First off, it’s a challenging piece, not only musically, but dramatically. Full of symbolism, it starts off in the spirit world of the god Keikobad whose daughter, the empress must find a shadow lest her husband, the emperor (none of the characters have real names) be turned to stone. So her nurse plots to take her to the human realm where they can make a Faustian pact with some unknowing woman, steal her shadow, and save the emperor. In the human realm, we meet Barak the dyer (the only one dignified with a name) and his wife (no name) and his three siblings (a hunchback brother, a one-eyed brother, and one-armed brother). Barak just wants to be a dad but his wife isn’t cooperating because she doesn’t like the life she leads. So she proves an easy target. Marital discontent ensues. The Empress starts getting a conscience about all this. The nurse is enjoying looking down on humans. And the emperor, who has but two brief appearances, starts thinking the worst of his wife. Eventually, the fairytale concludes with the empress’s renunciation of a shadow and her readiness to die by her husband’s side. It releases him from the spell. Barak and his wife realize they love each other. Marital bliss and paternity and maternity reigns. The end.

The work actually flows quite beautifully, has arresting drama in its second act, and its third act is simply glorious from start to finish. But it’s not an easy task finding a way to explore these two realms and integrate them, while also allowing Hofmannsthal, often obscure, symbolic language, to come through with dramatic clarity.

This is precisely what Wernicke achieved in 2003-04 when it first premiered and it holds up splendidly 20 years later. The production essentially features two sets that alternate seamlessly throughout, one rising and falling, the other sliding into its place, giving this four-hour experience a fluidity that other, shorter works in more cumbersome productions fail to achieve (the added bonus – it is all done without the now infamous turntable that has become a hallmark of opera productions over the past two decades). The spirit world is designed around what is essentially a box of mirrors, crystalline in its presentation and able to project some of the most exquisite lighting and visual cues that the Met has ever mustered. Blue dominates the first act, giving off a cold feeling and contrasting beautifully with the metallic and industrial feel of the human realm. When the Spirit world returns in Act two, it is dominated by purple, adding a sense of deepened abstraction, and emphasizing the growing distance between the Emperor and Empress emotionally. Finally, Act three features a brief but powerful scene in red wherein the Nurse discovers her fate. Then silver takes over when the Empress confronts the Emperor’s fate, creating a sense of fragility, like the whole glassy world could implode at any moment. The fact that the light reflects off of the stone Emperor back into the audience with blinding affect, only adds to the emotional tension of the scene. Meanwhile, the human realm features a central ladder that connects the ground to the spirit realm with the Nurse and the Empress the only ones with access to the top. Barak’s wife comes close to ascending as she is seduced by a spirit boy and Barak finds himself there at the start of Act three before the couple faces their final trial of reconciliation in the spirit realm, but otherwise, they are tied to the ground level of the set,  which in stark contrast to the minimalism and general emptiness of the spirit realm, is cluttered and over-saturated with stuff.

Blocking is pristine, which goes to show that in opera, it’s not about quantity but quality in this regard. Barak and his wife are often placed on opposite ends of the stage, and even when he goes searching for her, she inevitably runs in the other direction and ends up resetting the dynamic.

This image below perfectly embodies that dynamic.

(Credit: Evan Zimmerman)

The other characters get similar visual arcs as well. As the nurse gains influence and control over Barak’s wife, she roams about the stage, in fact dominating more than any other character in the piece. In Act two she becomes more of a spectator, huddling around the central ladder, a smile on her face as she watches the couple implode (the image above is a good reference). But by Act three, her presence is diminished visually. She appears on a boat and then gets relegated to the edges of the stage, the blinding red light in her scene with the messenger further minimizing her influence and power.

The Empress’ character is by far the one with the most dramatic growth throughout the opera, starting off as a follower to the nurse and eventually leaving the nurse behind, eschewing her predetermined path and taking fate into her own hands. To this effect, her blocking reveals this arc. She’s rather static in Act one and throughout her appearances in the human realm, the woman without a shadow, remains in the shadows by the central staircase. But as she grows fond of the couple, she leaves this place of safety and interacts more closely with both. Once she’s back in the spirit realm, she is allowed the greatest range of movement, and Elza van den Heever, interpreting the role, made the most of the space allotted to her, rushing around the stage, particularly during the spoken sections of her “Mein Liebster starr!”

At the end of the opera, the two worlds are dissolved replaced with a theatrical space that mirrors the different balconies of the Met and the two couples stand together at the edge of the stage, the lights on in the house, singing to the audience. The two stage worlds shatter, making way for the shattering of the fourth wall and the unification of the two worlds of the opera hall. It should also be noted that lights did not come off at the start of the performance until conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin ushered in the opening chord of the opera.

I could pick apart more details about this production and how immaculately directed it is, but then I would overshadow the other great feat this production managed – its casting.

The Best Cast in Ages

Casting an opera like “Die Frau ohne schatten” is challenging because it doesn’t get performed as much as other Strauss operas and it is fiendishly difficult for those who do take it on. While a major repertory house can get away with plugging and playing as best as they can in hopes that the singers and conductor “click” in a standard rep piece like “Carmen” and “Tosca” (which is unfortunately how it often feels), that luxury can’t be afforded here. And yet, sometimes these rarer works suffer precisely because that same “plug and play” approach is given to the casting or precisely because of its rarity on the stage, the singer they originally engaged four years ago is no longer available. So it’s all the more special when the cast of such an opera as “Die Frau” is as good as the one assembled for 2024-25. I would argue that from an artistic standpoint, it is one of the best the Met’s team has put together in quite a few years.

It all starts with Lise Lindstrom, who despite not being the pivotal character is, in many ways, at the core of the opera’s expression. Barak’s wife is a rebel, a woman who wants out, who dreams for more. She might ultimately settle, but it is her battle and the ensuing change it causes in her husband that awakens something in the Empress.

Lindstrom has a tremendous stage presence, doing a lot with little. She’s stoic on stage, but there’s fire in her eyes. With a subtle turn of the head, she can express all the contempt for her husband without having to do much more. She took up tremendous space in every scene she appeared in. She was particularly formidable in her Act two denunciation where she proclaims her desire to be free, taking centerstage with an erect and firm poise. But at the start of Act three, she was hunched over, expressing a lack of composure for the first time. After standing up with sturdiness throughout the first two acts, she spends a lot of Act three seated or on the ground.

This physical presence was matched by her vocal temperament. More than any other singer, her sound blasted into the space with abandon throughout the first two acts, emphasizing her fighting spirit. This was particularly present throughout “Es gibt derer” in Act two, the soprano’s aggressive approach coming to full fruition. It was undoubtedly her standout moment dramatically. But in Act three, faced with losing her husband, Lindstrom found gentler colors in her voice.

Her high notes can be shrill, the vibrato overly wide, and the sound piercing and seemingly unfocused. But, and perhaps this will infuriate vocal purists, there comes a point where artistry transcends an ideal sound or vocal perfection. This is what Lindstrom did. Because, despite those flaws in her upper range, she delivered it with such assuredness and confidence, that none of that mattered. And in Act three, when she found the lighter colors, the high notes also flowed with greater consistency. Nonetheless, the quality of her highs proved to be a feature because of how it suited the character’s brusque nature and also how it contrasted with the other two sopranos she was sharing the stage with.

As the Nurse, Nina Stemme’s voice also featured a wide vibrato in its upper range with inconsistent pitch, but it was a far rounder sound than Lindstrom and provided a solid and clear contrast in their scenes together. In contrast to Lindstrom and Stemme, Elza van den Heever’s voice proved the sweetest of the dramatic sopranos, her high notes the purest in execution, even if her lows went missing. But it was precisely these vocal differences that allowed us to feel the characters distinctly and for the voices to coalesce in ensembles.

Decked out in a black robe, Stemme was a looming presence, and even when she was mostly silent throughout Act two, she still drew you in with subtle movements or during her few interjections. In the case of Stemme and Lindstrom, both magnetic stage presences, it can be easy to be distracted with the two taking away from one another. But the brilliant blocking, the clear spirit of cooperation on stage allowed each to get their moments without one overpowering the other.

If Act one belongs to the Nurse and Act two to the Wife, then Act three is undeniably the domain of the Empress. And that’s where Elza van den Heever shone. It’s not that she didn’t stand out in the first two Acts. She perfectly embodied coolness in Act one, both vocally and physically, but there was greater warmth in her voice and concern in her face as she watched the drama unfold in Act two. But in Act three, she came alive with the dramatic and musical potency few singers have managed at the Met in quite some time. It starts before her “Vater, bist du’s” but there’s no doubt that this long musical section was the moment that truly crystallized what a special performance she was giving. Her singing started with hushed tones as she spoke to her invisible father, assuredness coming through the sense of emotional trepidation, the Empress confronting her fear and ready to seize it. Her voice blossomed throughout this passage. As the music grew, so too did her soprano, the legato line so fluid, so pure. When the Emperor appears as a Stoneman, the music erupts in waves, the soprano forced to speak the text and as noted earlier, Van den Heever delivered a tour-de-force moment, her body throwing about as she hurled out the text with increased fury. It was magical.

(Credit: Evan Zimmerman)

In the role of the Emperor, Russell Thomas was fantastic. He made the most of his two appearances in Act one and two, his voice rising over the tidal waves of sound in the orchestra. Act two’s “Falke, Falke, du wiederegefundener” is particularly long and the orchestra does not relent throughout, forcing the tenor to constantly rise above it. Thomas rode that wave with aplomb. I felt at times that the orchestra was pushing him to his limits with the expectation that he’d find another gear and feared that it might push him too far. But the tenor was full of vocal surprises, every part of his register smoothly and elegantly connected, the high notes, in particular, pure beams of sound. In the final act, his sturdy tenor matched up perfectly with van den Heever’s equal vibrant soprano. There seemed to be some shakiness from him in the final quartet (though it wasn’t only him), but by the end he and the rest of the ensemble coalesced wondrously.

Michael Volle complemented the main cast beautifully. As with the Emperor, Strauss initially gives the main men a lot of glorious melodies and romantic sweep. While the Emperor’s is, for lack of a better word, epic in its constantly ascending to higher and higher peaks, the orchestra always dialed up to 150 percent, Barak’s lyrical moments are more tender in both orchestration and approach, allowing Volle to sing with honeyed tone, his bass-baritone often a sliver of sound. Compared to the more robust singing from Stemme and Lindstrom in their scenes, Volle’s approach allowed Barak to come off as more of a manchild of sorts. Even when Lindstrom’s Wife hurled attack after attack, it was clear Volle’s approach was of conciliation and diffusing conflict as quickly as possible, his voice and body language more relaxed, never aggressive. Of course, the man was allowed to show greater depth during the final confrontation of Act two, when learning of his wife’s “infidelity,” he immediately grabs a knife and prepares to slit her throat. Volle’s body language shifted from its looseness, his towering frame suddenly menacing in its firmness, the singing harsher and more jagged. But in Act three, there was a newfound lightness that melded well with Lindstrom’s and the desperation flowed from both of them as they searched for one another in the Spirit Realm. Barak launches the final quartet “Nun will ich jubelin, wie keiner gejubelt” and Volle’s baritone boomed with a cathartic joy that no doubt blew the roof off the Met.

Despite the five central figures, the opera is actually a massive ensemble work that challenges every single cast member. As the Messenger, Ryan Speedo Green’s rugged bass blasted into the hall with authority. While his vocal texture can feel a bit abrasive for the bel canto colors of “Il Trovatore,” there’s no doubt that it is perfect for this repertory. His two scenes pit him against Stemme and those two voices bouncing off one another was glorious to behold.

Aleksey Bogdanov, Scott Conner, and Thomas Capobianco played the three brothers and were really fun to watch, particularly in how they assembled around one another like an organism split into three parts. Seeing them comfort Barak was both tender and amusing. But more impactful was how their voices blended marvelously with one another not only in their first entrance, but also in the septet that emerges in Act three. Capobianco, in particular, stood out with his bravura execution of some fiendishly high notes in that initial scene for the three brothers.

Ryan Capozzo delivered a fresh and gentle tenor as the Voice of a Young Man, while Laura Wilde’s lyric soprano delivered a glistening legato line in her brief appearance as the Guardian of the Threshold.

Major props to Scott Weber as the Falcon Mime, twirling and flipping around the stage brilliantly in his appearances.

Bringing it all Together

I have often been critical of Yannick Nézet-Séguin when it comes to his performance of the standard repertory, mainly his tendency to have a trees from the forest view, often distorting the music as he overindulges in it. But there’s no denying that, in my view, his interpretation of “Die Frau ohne Schatten” was by far his most successful performance in the romantic repertory at the Met to date. As with many of the contemporary works, where he almost always succeeds, this opera requires such precision and anticipation that it leaves no room for his less successful artistic tendencies. Because while there’s no doubt that the conductor pushed the orchestra to the extremes of its potency, the music sang with clarity, majesty, and drive. The conductor opened with a muscular and thunderous open chord that immediately delivered the message that there would be little holding back. And he didn’t relent, keeping this opera flowing and moving throughout, allowing the singers to rise to their greatest heights time and again. At times it felt that his orchestra’s forcefulness fired up his singers to push their limits, as was the case  with Thomas throughout “Falke, Falke, du wiederegefundener” and Van den Heever in “Vater, bist du’s.” But, during this latter moment, Nézet-Séguin also showed tremendous restraint and regard for his soloist, letting the orchestra gush with all its might before pulling back to allow the soprano’s spoken text to come through cleanly. There’s a world where a lack of focus or no restraint dangerously overpowers her there. That was not the case.

There were some patchy areas, particularly during the final quartet where it got a bit quiet at one point and the singers seemed a tad bit lost. I turned my attention to the podium and saw the conductor’s eyes glued to the singers, continuing on with the same energy he brought the entire night. Whatever was happening didn’t happen for long and the ensemble ended gloriously.

I must also shout out concertmaster David Chan and principal cellist Rafael Figueroa for their solo passages. Chan, in particular, imbued his moments with rich portamenti that is unfortunately often lacking in a lot of modern violin playing; these passages truly sang. Ditto for Figueroa, though his most notable qualities came from the breadth of his sound and how it rang, his line fluid all the way through. It was great to see Nézet-Séguin invite them on stage to take well-deserved bows as it was the first time in the Met’s history that this happened.

Where’s the HD?

If you’ve read our recent reviews of “Tosca” and “Ainadamar,” then you know how we feel about this opera not being on the HD slate. I won’t rehash that sentiment at length here, but only reiterate, especially after experiencing it firsthand, that it really is a shame that this production, which has had three runs in 21 years, and this cast, which is easily the best assembled at the Met in at least two to three seasons (not to mention that this “Frau” is in the running for the best opera that the Met will present in the entirety of 2024 and then 2024-25), will not be preserved for future generations to enjoy. And while there’s no doubt big picture thinking with regards to how to build certain artists’ careers via HD, it is also unfortunate that it comes at the cost of allowing audiences the opportunity to experience truly unique and rarely performed masterpieces, like this work.

There are five performances left of “Die Frau ohne Schatten.” Make sure you catch at least one of those, if not more. You might not get another shot to see it at the Met for another 10 or so years.