After the death of his longtime literary partner Hugo von Hofmannsthal in 1929, Richard Strauss (1864-1949) initially ruled out composing another opera. The writer Stefan Zweig was able to convince him of the opposite with his suggestion to use the 17th century story of Ben Jonson’s “Epicœne, or The Silent Woman” as the plot. Strauss managed to have the opera premiered in Dresden in 1935, despite all anti-Semitically motivated attempts to the contrary, but immediately afterwards Zweig emigrated abroad of necessity.
The plot takes the audience to a quiet suburb of London, where the retired Captain Morosus lives in seclusion. Only his housekeeper keeps the captain, who has been extremely sensitive to noise since an explosion, company, but he complains incessantly about her chattiness to his hairdresser. His joy at the unexpected visit of his nephew Henry is quickly shattered when he brings his lover, the prima donna Aminta, along with her opera troupe. Without further ado, the captain disinherits Henry. To undo this, the hairdresser, of all people, convinces Henry and Aminta to play a trick on the old curmudgeon and present the prima donna to him as a tame bride-to-be - only to play up all sorts of hullabaloo and bickering on the day after the fictitious wedding. And indeed, the play has an effect: when Henry and Aminta reveal themselves, the captain is relieved to forgive and gives Henry and Aminta his blessing.