Though I consider myself a deeply committed Richard Strauss-ophile, the composer’s Die Schweigsame Frau—a 1933-4 opera whose librettist was the distinguished Austrian writer, Stefan Zweig—has eluded me in live performance. The news that Bard SummerScape would produce it this year made a trip there a must.

At the same time, I’m also a general believer that there’s usually a good reason why some works are seldom presented without cuts. So the announcement that BSS’s revival would include a very significant amount of material—more than an hour, by my count—that was removed even before the premiere gave me pause.

In the end, both sides of me were validated…

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