page 79

"I'll put it straight to you." Camenita said.
I broke up with Boet, I said adios to your
brother." Marie corrected: As a matter of
fact, you were gonna do that, he just left
after a quarrel." Gradually Henk became
less enthusiastic about the chicken livers
he was eating. But he started feeling better
when another bottle of wine was opened and
he behaved somewhat looser. In the evening
they baked mores fries and made plans to go
to Brussels the next day. To search libraries
for libretti and scores. Richard Strauss:
'Feuersnot', 'Ariadne auf Naxos' and 'Capriccio'.
Antonio Salieri: 'La Grotta di Trofonio' and
'Prima la musica e poi le parole.'


Richard Strauss

Actually it had been the story of Trofonio,
that gave rise to the idea to invite Henk.
Together with Marie, Carmenita had been
browsing in an opera guide, to give the
inspiration a helping hand. The twin
daughters of a certain Aristone, Ofelia
and Dori are allowed to choose the partner
of their choice. But the men in question
discover a magic cave where the magician
Trofonio achieves that their characters
are reversed and that leads to the usual
convolutions of the Arcadian intrigue and
of course the usual happy ending.
"You know, once Boet brought along his
younger brother, Henk is his name, and
quite frankly, I liked him a lot more."
"Call him immediately." Marie had said.


Antonio Salieri

page 82

The 'dopo' in Capriccio sounds slightly better then
the 'e poi' in the title of Salieri's opera, some
150 years earlier. Stefan Zweig provided Strauss
with the libretto, written by a priest called Casti,
but didn't want to adapt it for Strauss, because
Strauss continued working under the Nazi regime.
The first performance was in 1942 'Unter der
Schirmherrschaft (patronage) des Herrn
Reichsministers Dr Joseph Goebbels.'
In 1786 Belgium was the Austrian Netherlands
and emperor Joseph II had organized a feast,
honoring the visit of the governors-general
of the Austrian Netherlands, where both a
piece of Mozart and Salieri were performed.
Salieri's 'Prima la musica e poi le parole'
and Mozart's 'der Schauspieldirector'.


left: Strauss right: Goebbels

Then Carmenita and Marie began a conversation
about the movie 'Amadeus', which Henk hadn't
seen. He could join the conversation again when
they were talking about the cause of the rumor
about the poisoning of Mozart by Salieri, and
Henk picked up the word 'Pushkin'. So he could
bring up 'Onegin'. And that once, together with
two friends, he had been trying to write ... When
suddenly the phone rang and Carmenita sent them
to the kitchen making hand gestures. With her lips
she formed the sentence: "Boet is on the line."

page 83

In the kitchen, Henk and Marie had been silent
to be able to catch a few words. "Don't worry,
he's not taking it hard, I think, and of course
he's more mad at me, than at you. And at you,
Marie, he even thinks that you are behind all
this. He wanted to take me on a trip to South
Africa, imagine ... screw him." There were
other things Henk worried about. The fact that
he ran out of money, and was living already two
weeks at their expense. Not too worried though.
It looked like Carmenita was well provided for.


Richard Strauss.....Ernst von Wolzogen......Richard Wagner

For 'Feuersnot' (the need for fire), Strauss and
the librettist von Wolzogen had moved the setting
of the saga 'Het gedoofde vuur (extinguished fire)
van Oudenaerde' to Munich. The town, Strauss had to
settle an old score with. Both Richard Strauss and
Richard Wagner weren't always treated very friendly
by the Bavarian town. So he puts these words into
the mouth of his protagonist Kunrad:
"Sein Wagen kam allzu gewagt euch vor,
Da triebt ihr den Wagner aus dem Tor
Den bösen Feind, den triebt ihr nit aus
Der stellt sich euch immer auf's neu' zum Strauss."
(You might put 'Wagner' (wheelwright)
outside the gates but a new enemy will
show up with a 'Strauss' (bunch of flowers.)


Fragment from Feuersnot