Part fairy tale, part psychodrama, Richard Strauss’s “Die Frau Ohne Schatten” (The Woman Without a Shadow) calls for three big-voiced sopranos who can do justice to a long and difficult score.
That’s one reason the opera, which premiered in 1919, is a relative rarity, though many consider it Strauss's masterpiece. Now the San Francisco Opera is presenting it for the first time in 34 years with a cast that includes three leading Wagner and Strauss singers: Nina Stemme as the Dyer’s Wife, Camilla Nylund as the Empress and Linda Watson as the Nurse.
