Premiere: Court Opera, Dresden, 1911
Strauss’s most popular opera was an instant success at its premiere, earning a secure spot in the repertory that has not wavered in the century since. Set in an idealized Vienna of the mid-18th century, it concerns a wise woman of the worldwho is involved with a much younger lover. Over the course of the opera, she is forced to confront and ultimately accept the laws of time, giving him up to a pretty young heiress. Octavian, the titular “Knight of the Rose,” is sung by a woman—partly as an homage to Mozart’s Cherubino and partly as a nod to the power of illusion, which emerges as an important theme in the opera. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who would go on to work with Strauss on four more operas, created a fascinating libretto that deftly combines comedy (of both the sophisticated and the slapstick varieties), dreamy nostalgic fantasy, genuine human drama, and light-but-striking touches of philosophy and social commentary. Strauss’s magnificent score, likewise, works on several levels, combining the refinement of Mozart with the epic grandeur of Wagner. The result is a unique achievement: a grand opera that is as vast and complex as it is humane and charming.
The Creators
Richard Strauss (1864–1949) composed an impressive body of orchestral works and songs before turning to opera. After two early failures, Strauss caused a theatrical sensation with Salome (1905), and from then on, the balance of his long career was largely dedicated to the stage. His next opera, Elektra (1909), was his first collaboration with librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929), a partnership that became one of the most remarkable in theater history.
Hofmannsthal emerged as an author and poet within the fervent intellectual atmosphere of Vienna at the turn of the 20th century. Their personalities were very different—Hofmannsthal enjoyed the world of abstract ideas, while Strauss was famously simple in his tastes—which makes their collaboration all the more extraordinary.
The Setting
The opera was originally set in Vienna in the 1740s. Genuine historical references (to the Empress Maria Theresa, the wars in the Low Countries, and the Imperial “Morals Police”) are merged with fictitious inventions (like the “noble custom” of the presentation of the silver rose to a fiancée) and anachronisms (such as the Viennese Waltz, which did not yet exist). It’s a mixture that creates a seductive mythical landscape, a ceremonious and impossibly beautiful Vienna-that-never-was.The Met’s current production moves the timeframe to 1911, the year of the opera’s premiere, amidst a declining Habsburg Empire.
The Music
The score of Der Rosenkavalier is lush, rich, and romantic to an extraordinary degree—perhaps surprisingly so, considering that the composer had written the disturbingly edgy and modern Elektra only two years earlier. The presentation of the rose, with its soaring vocal lines sprinkled with chromatic figures reflecting the shimmering of the silver rose (a motif that reappears with renewed poignancy at the very end) is ravishingly beautiful. Waltzes appear frequently, sometimes bumptious, sometimes elegant: Ochs’s musings at the end of Act II are both. In fact, the relationship between the banal and the sublime is expressed through the music as well as the libretto: The clunky tune of the tavern music in the early part of Act III later assumes a different texture and becomes the famous final trio, a gorgeous blend of female voices that is among the supreme accomplishments of lyric theater. The score also contains comic depictions of chaos and confusion, like the various characters competing for the Marschallin’s attention in Act I, the skirt-chasing lackeys of Act II, and, most of all, the screaming children and ghostly apparitions of Act III. The seemingly effortless musical craft of thesepassages masks the fact that the score is devilishly difficult to perform, ranked by instrumentalists among the most demanding in the repertory.