Die Liebe der Danae

Die Liebe der Danae
Opera by Richard Strauss
The composer reading the score, in 1945
Librettist	Joseph Gregor
Language	German
Based on	Hugo von Hofmannsthal sketch "Danae, or The Marriage of Convenience" (1920)
Premiere	14 August 1952 (1952-08-14) Kleines Festspielhaus, Salzburg Festival

Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danaë) is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to a February 1937 German libretto by Joseph Gregor, loosely based on a sketch written in 1920 in the style of Jacques Offenbach's satirical works,^[1] "Danae, or The Marriage of Convenience", by Hugo von Hofmannsthal.^[2] Strauss worked on the score in 1937, 1938 and into 1939, although he was pre-occupied with completing Daphne, developing ideas with Gregor and finally replacing him as librettist for Capriccio, and then succumbed to illness, which caused postponement for several months into 1940. The opera was finally finished on 28 June 1940.^[3]

However, for a variety of reasons including Strauss' perception that the failure of Die Frau ohne Schatten, as he put it, was caused by having been "put on in German theatres too soon after the last war",^[4] the composer refused to allow Clemens Krauss, to whom he had guaranteed the right to conduct the first performances, to stage it until two years after the war.^[4]

The opera is an ingenious mixture of comedy and Greek mythology and the final act "contains the opera's finest music, a fact recognized by Strauss."^[5]