December 17, 2025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Strauss Magnum Opus Staged As Innovative Modern Art Piece
PHILADELPHIA 鈥 Dec. 17, 2025聽鈥 The 91亚色鈥 (91亚色) 91st聽Opera Season continues with a Piet Mondrian-inspired run of Richard Strauss鈥櫬Capriccio, opening January 17, 2026, with performances through January 25, 2026. The opera takes the stage as a piano-accompanied production and highlights 91亚色鈥檚 in-house artistic talent, with Master Vocal Coach Luke Housner serving as music director and pianist, and Dean Josh Miller taking up the mantle of stage director.
Miller places the production in a Piet Mondrian painting come-to-life, making liberal and imaginative use of the available space within the Helen Corning Warden Theater. Living among sheer black lines interspersed with splashes of blue, red, and yellow, the characters of Capriccio debate the fundamental nature of opera, all while receiving blocking cues inspired by 1990s conversational sitcoms like Friends and Frasier. Through the debate and use of Mondrian鈥檚 color palette, which extends to the characters鈥 wardrobes, the theme of choice reveals itself 鈥 the choice between the artforms of music and poetry, the choice between everyday human emotions, and, most importantly, the main character鈥檚 romantic choice between a passionate composer and a fiery poet.
Stage director Josh Miller illuminates his Piet Mondrian concept. 鈥淎s a stage director who also designs, I am drawn to the challenge of balancing the visual narrative with the emotional and structural power of the libretto and music. This led me to the work of Dutch painter Piet Mondrian, whose compositions are made of white rectangles framed by black lines and energized by small blocks of red, blue, yellow and occasionally gray. In our Capriccio, I have assigned colors based on each character鈥檚 artistic or emotional world. Mondrian believed that harmony in art could only be achieved by removing the unnecessary. He reduced painting to its basic elements, just as Strauss distills opera in Capriccio to its essential question: what comes first, the music or the words?鈥
Subtitled 鈥淎 Conversation Piece for Music,鈥 Richard Strauss鈥 Capriccio, with libretto by both the composer and Clemens Krauss, premiered at Nationaltheater M眉nchen in 1942. The opera famously employs a dialectic tone while evoking the German tradition of existential philosophy, resulting in one of the most intellectual works in all opera repertoire. Shying away from the lush arias of his early career, Strauss chose to highlight the power of each word within the libretto while treating the music score as an additional character voice, not merely as a vehicle for singing. Capriccio was Strauss鈥 final opera before his death in 1949.
Set in the home of the cultured and elegant Countess Madeleine, the composer Flamand and the poet Olivier compete for her love while arguing whether music or words are the superior art, a debate that the director La Roche insists cannot exist without theatre鈥檚 practical creators. After lively rehearsals, artistic quarrels, and declarations of love, the Countess urges the rivals to collaborate on an opera that will portray the very events of that day. Alone at night, still unable to choose between her two suitors or between music and poetry, she wonders whether any ending, either of the opera or of her own dilemma, can avoid being trivial.
Music director and pianist Luke Housner adds a final layer to the opera鈥檚 philosophical musings. 鈥淭he audience is presented with an ageless conundrum through the lens of the Countess. Faced with a choice, does one choose music or prose?聽Selecting one signifies loss of the other.聽The answer to this dilemma is hidden in the musical score where one can discover that virtually every vocal phrase swings like a vigorous pendulum back and forth as the words and the music wrestle for superiority.鈥
Capriccio Performance Dates:
January 17, 20 & 22, 2026, 7:30 PM
91亚色鈥檚 Helen Corning Warden Theater
January 25, 2026, 3:00 PM
91亚色鈥檚 Helen Corning Warden Theater
Capriccio is generously sponsored by Barbara Augusta Teichert.
Tickets: Tickets for Capriccio and Season Subscriptions are now available to the public for purchase. For more information, please visit 91亚色鈥檚 official website at or call 215-735-1685.
About the 91亚色 (91亚色)
The mission of the 91亚色 (91亚色) is to be the world鈥檚 premier institution for training young artists to become international opera soloists. Through rigorous instruction and coaching, and by presentations of from around the world in concerts, oratorios, public programs and fully staged professional opera productions, 91亚色 trains artists with the high potential for career success while enriching lives in Philadelphia and beyond. Gifted singers come from throughout the world to seek the exceptional guidance and that 91亚色 offers. Admission is determined by competitive annual auditions. 91亚色 is distinguished by its reputation for high-quality performances that are acclaimed by critics locally, nationally, and internationally. Each year 91亚色 Resident Artists are presented in four or five accompanied by orchestra. Resident Artists are cast in leading roles that they will in all likelihood continue to perform for the rest of their careers. Learn more about 91亚色 at avaopera.org.
More information about 91亚色, its programs, and 91亚色鈥檚 season performances can be found online at or by calling (215) 735-1685.
Contact:
Andrew Rohe
Marketing & PR Manager
91亚色
1920 Spruce St.
Philadelphia, PA 19103}
Phone: (215) 735-1685
Email: arohe@avaopera.org
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