»The Woman without a Shadow« is a fairy tale. A fairy tale for adults. A bit like »The Magic Flute«.
There is the simple couple, like Papageno and Papagena, and then there is the high couple, »Kaiserin« and »Kaiser«, like Tamino and Pamina.
Every couple goes through a test in this piece.
I would also really say that there are three couples in this piece: there is the »Kaiser« and the »Kaiserin«, the dyer and his wife, and there is the nurse and the »Kaiserin«.
What I find interesting about the »Kaiserin« is the development she makes.
She is the person who goes through the piece and learns, so to speak.
What is empathy, what is love, what is jealousy, what is envy.
At the end, when the »Kaiserin« separates from the nurse, she says that she wants to stay here.
The nurse is a traveler between the worlds. This becomes very clear in the very first scene when she talks about her experiences in the human world.
There's a wonderful passage in Act 3 where she says:
»Swarming like eels. Screeching like eagles, fouling the earth!«
From a current political perspective, it can't be completely denied. What I find interesting about this piece is also this different view of what a human being is at this point in time.
The play is often seen as an emancipation piece of women.
We still ask ourselves this question every day, even though it is now 2024 and not 1919, when the play came out.
I find it very interesting that two men, again, Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, created a kind of »women’s opera« together.
The play is so rich that when you put it on stage, you have to make a decision. Do I want to focus on relationships, do I want to focus on the question: What is being human? What does it mean to be human?
I think the message of the piece is still that as a person you are what you make of yourself and also in relationships.