High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Die Frau ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow) is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917. When it premiered in Vienna on 10 October 1919, critics and audiences were unenthusiastic (many cited problems with Hofmannsthal`s complicated and heavily symbolic libretto). Today, the opera is considered by some to be Strauss`s finest work in the genre, while others disagree.