Dates

• Existence: June 11, 1864 - September 8, 1949

Biography

1925 found Richard Strauss working on two projects: His opera Die ägyptische Helena and a reduction of Der Rosenkavalier for the film version of the work created by German Expressionist film maker, Robert Wiene. Wiene, who was best known for his film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, recreated the work devoid of its libretto. Ultimately this decision proved disastrous, as not even Strauss’s presence as conductor at the movies premier on January 10, 1926 could compensate for the loss of Hofmannsthal’s poetry, and the film failed. Die ägyptische Helena was also received as a failure at both its premier in 1928 and at the American premier of the revised score in 1933. While Strauss was working on these scores in 1925, he was doing a lot of traveling, from Paris, to Barcelona, to Gamisch, and eventually settling in for the summer at Nauheim. There is no record of Strauss spending time in Venice or anywhere in Italy until November of that year, when he travelled to Turin for the city premier of Ariadne auf Naxos.