Lauren Flanigan Danae
Peter Coleman-Wright Jupiter
Lisa Saffer Xanthe
Hugh Smith Midas
William Lewis Pollux
Michael Hendrick Merkur
Tamara Mesic Semele
Jane Jennings Europa
Mary Phillips Alkmene
Elisabeth Canis Leda

Leo Botstein Conductor

American Symphony Orchestra, Concert Chorale of New York

Die Liebe der Danae was conceived by Strauss and Hofmanstal at about the
same time as Die Aegyptische Helene and Die Frau ohne Schatten, but finally
emerged, with a libretto by Joseph Gregor hacked about by many others, for
a dress rehearsal during the second world war and a premiere proper in
1952, after Strauss' death. Although it is like Helene a romantic comedy
using figures from classical mythology, it has something in common with the
war-time Munchausen film, a lavish fantasy about love and wealth that
resolutely doesn't mention the war.

The plot is a retread of many a romantic fantasy, including Zemlinsky's Es
war einmal, which already had a high recycled content, but loaded down with
Wagnerian portentousness. Jupiter wants to experience real human love, and
hopes to get it from Danae, whom he woos as a shower of gold. He gets
Midas, a Mesopotamian ass-driver, to run cover for him, giving him the
power to turn things into gold in return for the use of his appearance.
Danae's father Pollux is desperately in debt (jokes from 1922 rather than
1940), and when Jupiter in the guise of Midas shows up as a suitor loaded
with gold, he is relieved. Midas proper also shows up under the name
Chrysopher, and he and Danae fall in love. (Pollux's daughters-in-law are
all mythological figures who have slept with a disguised Jupiter before,
and they recognize the scam.) Jupiter and Midas fall out over her, and
Jupiter repeats his curse of Midas, who then turns Danae into a gold statue
when he tries to kiss her. Danae chooses Midas and poverty, and goes off to
Midas' ass-driver's hut where she is happy. Jupiter makes one last bid to
win her back, after donating a shower of gold to sort out her father's
problems, but she offers him the last piece of gold on her person, a hair
clasp and he goes away resigned never to knowing human love.

In other hands (Alexander Korda's, say, or Rouben Mamoulian's) it might
have been a fluffy comedy, but Strauss' sense of the comic is rudimentary
without help from Hofmanstal's wit. The scenes of thronging debtors would
be naff in Chu Chin Chow, and Jupiter's ex-lovers ganging up on him,
although basically a good joke, needed to be done a lot more lightly.
Jupiter's last-act renunciation of humanity is tour-de-force material for a
baritone who might have liked to do Wotan in a different life, but it's a
serious overloading of the basic idea that it's tough being on top and
money isn't everything.

This performance by the American Symphony Orchestra was hugely enjoyable,
though, as long as you didn't think about it too much. Perhaps it's the
Avery Fisher Hall, or perhaps Leo Botstein was able to keep the balance
under superb control, but the singers got full support from the orchestra
while rarely being overwhelmed. Lauren Flanigan was gorgeous in the title
role, which she performed as if it were part of the standard repertoire.
Lisa Saffer in the small role of Xanthe, Danae's sister and confidante,
sang beautifully. Hugh Smith was something of a matinee-idol Midas, perhaps
not quite a Bacchus but substantial enough vocally for the hefty music.
Peter Coleman-Wright boomed away as Jupiter. The four ex-girlfriends were
neatly orchestrated, and the chorus light on its vocal toes.