LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Richard Strauss: Life
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"Ein Heldenleben" — "A Hero's Life" — like Strauss's "Symphonia Domestica," contains provokingly good material. Provoking because this is a case of aggressive egotism, because its hero is Strauss himself, who hymns in a fifty-minute tone-poem his own greatness and the pettiness of his enemies. Who are they? Presumably the critics! It is a sweet revenge, since, if fair-minded, they must praise at least the major part of this tonal autobiography. It is not Strauss's first attempt at self-glorification, for his second opera, "Feuersnot" (Need of Fire), has in transparent guise a certain Richard, a magician, for its hero, who brings a backward community to heel by the fires of his genius.
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Strauss met Gustav Mahler in 1887 while he was guest conducting in Leipzig. It is reported that the two hit it off quite well. That same summer, Strauss fell head over heels in love with soprano Pauline de Ahna. His later marriage to her might possibly be among the biggest mistakes of his life. Accounts vary, but Strauss was, to use an old phrase, "henpecked." Pauline turned out to be a harridan and insisted upon running all aspects of the household, including the financial matters, herself.
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* In other opera news, the Los Angeles Times committed a howler with respect to Die Frau ohne Schatten--another Strauss opera. The paper's music critic, Mark Swed, had called this opera "an incomparably glorious and goofy prolife paean." (He meant that it celebrates procreation.) An on-the-ball editor at the L.A. Times changed "pro-life" to "anti-abortion"--and there ensued two hilarious corrections. Truth is, Die Frau features the Voices of Unborn Children. Those meaningless blobs of protoplasm actually sing.
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