The Silent Woman (Die schweigsame Frau) is Richard Strauss’s only comic opera in every sense, a direct descendant of an opera buffa. Completed in late 1934, with a libretto by Stefan Zweig (loosely based on Ben Johnson), the opera received its premi?re in Dresden in 1935. It retells the story of ‘teaching the old marriage-seeking bachelor a lesson’.
Strauss gave the overture the subtitle ‘potpourri’. The term denotes a medley of popular nineteenth-century melodies, ones that brass and coffee-house bands would have typically performed in Strauss’s day. Nevertheless, Strauss’s overture has little in common really with these; his motifs are brief fragments of melodies, and are often juxtaposed in a masterfully elaborated polyphonic fabric. At the start of the overture Strauss superimposes two key motifs in a way that the simultaneity of the two creates an exciting metric play. The three-note motif in the horn is in 3/4 while the main theme is consistent with the 6/8 basic metre. Ending in a dazzling stretta, the ‘potpourri’ lasting just over four minutes is extremely effective both in the opera and on the concert stage.