Richard Strauss' one-act opera Feuersnot (1900 - 01) represents the composer's second major effort for the stage. This work departs from the medieval and Wagnerian milieu Strauss used in his first opera, Guntram (1887 - 93), and is significant for its more personal text. The libretto, by Ernst von Wolzogen, is a fable that may be taken as Strauss' public rebuttal to his critics.

Wolzogen based Feuersnot on the Flemish fable of the "Quenched Fires of Audenarde." In that form, the story concerns the efforts of a young man to win the affections of a particular maiden. When he has himself hoisted by basket to her bedroom window, she leaves him literally hanging there until morning, when the townspeople see him so humiliated. The young man asks a magician to help him avenge this ignominy. The magician banishes fire in the town until a spark can be struck from the woman's backside as she is exhibited naked in the marketplace; she will thus be humiliated in the same way she shamed her suitor. Though this kind of story might have been more appropriate for a cabaret work, Wolzogen was able to arrive at a libretto that made the tale presentable on stage as a love story rather than a merely risqué anecdote. In adapting the story, Wolzogen changed the details—not only to make it more acceptable as an opera, but to make it a suitable vehicle for Strauss' comments on his own critics. The old magician is modeled after Richard Wagner ("Reichart der Meister"), the young man after Richard Strauss; in the opera, the latter takes revenge on the Philistines who do not appreciate his efforts by withholding fire from them and thus making them to appreciate his work. It may be that such nuances were lost on the audiences of Strauss' day, who greeted the work coolly.

Stylistically, Feuersnot is less Wagnerian than Strauss' earlier Guntram. Strauss himself once described the work as more in the style of the German composer Albert Lortzing, yet it is more operatic than Lortzing's generally lighter fare. In Feuersnot, Strauss had not yet arrived at the more telegraphic style of Salome (1904 - 05), a work that displays a much higher level of sophistication. Still, the penultimate instrumental scene is particularly effective in its portrayal of the reconcilation between the woman Diemut and the magician Kunrad; here, Strauss wisely chose to let the music depict the bond that developed between the pair.

Late in life Strauss commented on Feuersnot, regretting its lack of popular appeal. He felt as though the public missed his point in the opera and expressed the importance that this work had in his development as a composer. It may be that the opera's topicality caused it to fail during Strauss' lifetime, but Feuersnot nonetheless retains a certain historical importance.

© James Zychowicz, All Music Guide