Strauss's "Arabella' at AVA

Richard Strauss's Arabella without an orchestra seems unthinkable.

Arabella is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written in 1933 for a large orchestra that included 60 strings plus oboes, clarinets, bass clarinet, bassoons, double bassoon, English and French horns, trumpets, trombones, bass tuba, timpani and harp. This was what audiences expected from Strauss, who was famous for huge tone poems such as Ein Heldenleben and Also Sprach Zarathustra, as well as awesome operas such as Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier and Die Frau Ohne Schatten.

Strauss got to the point of specifying a 164-piece orchestra consisting of all of the above instruments plus basset horns, Chinese gongs, cymbals, celesta, xylophone, tambourine, castanets and glockenspiel. As a further peculiarity, Strauss wrote special solo passages for the French horn, which his father had played, and for violin, which he thought of as his mother's voice. We need to know this history to understand how fantastic it would be to hear an Arabella with small forces.

And yet Arabella received a loving and communicative performance at the Academy of Vocal Arts, with Luke Housner alone at a piano conducting a cast of AVA resident artists. This intimate production enabled some of Arabella's overlooked qualities to emerge, giving the opera a stature that has evaded it during most of its history.

Compared to Rosenkavalier

Arabella was often compared to Rosenkavalier— and usually derided as a failed "sequel"— because both were set among the Viennese nobility. But there are huge differences, which show why Arabella functions best when seen on a smaller scale.

Rosenkavalier is a comedy involving the very wealthy and powerful rulers of the Hapsburg Empire. Even the rich Viennese in that opera rank far beneath the status of the Fieldmarshal and his wife, as we are reminded when the Marschallin ends her erotic dalliance with the noble Octavian: She tells him that she'll go riding in public soon, "and if you so wish, you may come to the Prater too and ride beside my carriage.''

In contrast, Arabella concerns a Hapsburg family with inherited title but shaky social status. On the tiny AVA stage their small abode is quickly perceived as belonging to a different and inferior league.

Count Waldner, Arabella's father, is addicted to gambling and deeply in debt. He and his wife have raised Arabella's younger sister Zdenka as a boy so they can avoid the higher costs of clothing a girl and presenting her at coming-out parties. When a handsome and wealthy suitor arrives from Croatia, Arabella has the chance to marry for love and also solve her family's financial problems — but the deception about Zdenka's gender leads to misunderstandings that threaten to unravel all plans.

Bonding with the men

Arabella also is unique in presenting three well-rounded male roles: the father, the wealthy Mandryka from Croatia, and the persistent suitor Matteo. Up close and personal, without the, shall we say, interference of a big orchestra, we get to empathize and bond with these people.

Housner's piano reduction also allows strands of counterpoint to become clear in ensembles that, in conventional performances, tend to get mushy. (Full disclosure: Back in the 1990s Housner and I performed a joint cabaret act that showcased Opera Company of Philadelphia productions to its subscribers.)

At the opening night performance, Jan Cornelius was an elegant Arabella, with a rich lyric voice. Her gender-bending sister was a new face to me: Chloe Moore, a first-year soprano from Toronto, whom I found touching and radiant in personality and voice. Alex Lawrence presented a tall, dark and handsome Mandryka and handled well the part's fiendishly difficult vocal demands. Subsequent performances have alternating casts.