Edinburgh's Luminous Capriccio Countess

Malin Byström stars in the Festival's Closing Concert Performance

Malin Byström sings Countess Madeleine with Bo Skovhus as her brother, the Count. Picture © Andrew Perry

Richard Strauss’s last opera, Capriccio, has something of a recent history at the Edinburgh International Festival. Three of the last four festival directors have programmed this late ‘Conversation Piece’ - as Strauss and his co-librettist, the conductor Clemens Kraus, called their epicurean stage work - either in concert (Brian McMaster in 2004, Nicola Benedetti 20 years later) or in a full production (Jonathan Mills invited the Cologne Opera in 2007).

Three ‘Capricci’ in two decades must be a record, especially for a piece renowned for its connoisseur cachet: this is very a much a ‘festival opera’, championed in the UK by Glyndebourne in the 1960s and revived there in 1976, 1978 and 1998, latterly in a staging by John Cox (who directed later productions in Glasgow, Brussels, Paris, San Francisco and London).

Capriccio dramatises the romantic dilemma of Countess Madeleine, who must choose between the attractions of the tenor composer Flamand and the baritone poet Olivier, creators of the opera she commissions. The role, long prized as a vehicle for a star soprano, was created by Viorica Ursuleac, wife of Krauss and allegedly Strauss’s favourite. It subsequently attracted the attention of such famous singers as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Lisa Della Casa, Elisabeth Söderström, Gundula Janowitz, Felicity Lott, Kiri te Kanawa and Renée Fleming. But even with such illustrious names, the public has tended to stay away - in larger theatres anyway - deterred by the libretto’s preponderance of aesthetic debate. The near-capacity audience for Edinburgh’s concert performance at the Usher Hall was something to marvel at.