Many of the transcriptions and arrangements of masterpieces of the past done by great composers of the early twentieth century, like Monteverdi’s Orfeo revised and corrected by Ottorino Respighi (1934) and Mozart’s Idomeneo freely and generously revised by Richard Strauss (1931), have become historical remains themselves, and as such are rediscovered and reproposed; seeking to be as faithful as possible to their own variously glaring aithlessness, they reflect the true feelings of the authors of these ”revisions” much more than tributes and acts of devotion.

In 1929 the Bohemian producer Lothar Wallerstein and the conductor Klemens Krauss asked Richard Strauss for an adaptation of Mozart’s Idomeneo to be performed in 1931 to mark the 150th anniversary of the first performance of the opera, staged in Munich on 29th January 1781.

The original libretto of Mozart’s Idomeneo, written in Italian by abbot Varesco, court chaplain in Salzburg, was thus translated into German, and between spring and summer 1930 Strauss completed his work on the adaptation.

We do not have enough space here to examine all the changes, modifications and additions that Strauss made. Whoever listens to this Idomeneo must be fully aware of the fact that the Mozart opera, as we know and love it today, was only the basis on which Strauss worked. The opera should be seen, at least half of it, as an original work by the Munich composer. If we were to apply the simple metre of historical fidelity,the work would be completely unredeemable. If, on the other hand, we see it as a personal, free re-elaboration effected by one musical genius on the basis of the product of another musical genius, then it will offer us no few points of reflection and even of genuine musical pleasure.