Richard Strauss’ Die schweigsame Frau is so difficult to cast that it’s very rarely staged. So, Jan Phillip Gloger’s new production for Staasoper Berlin promises to be one of this season’s operatic highlights, not least because it inaugurates Christian Thielemann’s tenure as the theatre’s Music Director, succeeding Daniel Barenboim.

HP VOICE is therefore thrilled to represent the opera’s three principal characters — Peter Rose as Sir Morosus, Siybonga Maqungo as his nephew, Henry; and Brenda Rae as Aminta, his wife and the eponymous heroine of Stefan Zweig’s libretto after Ben Jonson.

Although Richard Strauss defended his collaboration with Zweig amidst the hide tide of anti-semitism when the opera was premiered in Dresden in 1935, he accepted that his name should be removed from the programme, and the Nazi regime quickly suppressed it.