Thank You

👍🏻
This is the moment in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, live in HD from the Metropolitan Opera, at the end of Act I when Renée Fleming looks out into the auditorium and thinks this is perhaps the last time.  The look of this scene resembles Blenheim Palace, the home of the Duke of Marlborough. 

Conductor....................Sebastian Weigle
Production...................Robert Carsen

Count Octavian Rofrano.....Elīna Garanča
Princess von Werdenberg...Renée Fleming
Baron Ochs...................Günther Groissböck
Sophie.......................Erin Morley
Faninal......................Markus Brück
Annina.......................Helene Schneiderman
Valzacchi...................Alan Oke
Italian Singer.............Matthew Polenzani

The time has been moved to 1912 when the opera was first performed, just before WWI.  All the men are soldiers.  There were many special moments in this Rosenkavalier, but I especially liked when the Marschallin sings "Wenn ich auch an ein Maedel errinnern, die frisch aus dem Kloster bis in die heiligen..." and she goes over to the chest containing the rose, takes it out and remembers that once the rose arrived for her.  I have never seen this business before.  I saw my first Renée Fleming Marschallin in 2000 in San Francisco and find her characterization was deeper and more serious than before.  I also loved that at the end she takes the arm of the police sergeant, moving on to her next lover it would seem.  I can only describe her as magnificent.

Most of the details of the staging are acceptable if not always traditional, but at the end is a surprise.  In Act I a large, odd looking green hat appears.  Then at the very end of the opera when everyone has left the stage, an army rises up with someone in the center wearing the green hat.  We must assume this is the otherwise not seen Feldmarschall being mowed down in battle.  Curious.  This could easily be done without.

I didn't agree with every detail, but the richness of texture of this production filled my heart to overflowing.  Der Rosenkavalier holds a special place in my heart, and this one has risen to the top. 

Our Ochs, Günther Groissböck, was Ochs in Salzburg in 2014.  He adds many layers of depth to this character.

And our Italian singer was none other than Enrico Caruso.

This moment in the second act was also perfection, though of the more traditional sort.  Octavian leans over to smell the Persian attar of roses, looks up at Sophie and instantly falls in love.  I first heard Erin Morley in King Roger in Santa Fe where she was wonderful.  Her Sophie is much more than a mere soubrette and adds soaring lines.  Her acting is also more complex than usual.

When I saw her in duets with Anna Netrebko, I did not imagine that our Latvian mezzo Elīna Garanča would turn out to be such a wonderful actress.  She was simply spectacular.  I'm having a hard time finding the words for something that exceeded my wildest imaginings.  She threw herself so gleefully into Mariandel.

We finished with a spectacularly glorious trio.  Thank you, Peter Gelb, Metropolitan Opera, Günther Groissböck, Erin Morley, Renée Fleming, and most of all Elīna Garanča for a wonderful memory.

#ad

For Rosenkavalier

From the moment I knew it existed I have loved it more than all the others.  I can see vividly in my mind’s eye standing before the student ushering sign-up sheet for the San Francisco Opera and having no idea what to see.  My fellow students said “Der Rosenkavalier.”  As one.  I also remember vividly sitting in the aisle on the right side of the balcony circle, feeling like a voyeur as Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Kirsten Meier sang their love scene on the bed.

I remember holding the program under the lights that shine onto the stairs.  WTF.  I didn’t swear in those days.  It seemed more real than any theatrical performance I had ever seen.  The Schwarzkopf loomed large over this role.  I was hooked.

Der Rosenkavalier at Deutsche Oper, Berlin

👍🏻
Conductor: Ulf Schirmer
Production: Götz Friedrich

Die Feldmarschallin Fürstin Werdenberg: Michaela Kaune (soprano)
Der Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau: Albert Pesendorfer (bass)
Octavian: Daniela Sindram (mezzo-soprano)
Der Herr von Faninal: Michael Kupfer-Radecky (baritone)
Sophie, his daughter: Siobhan Stagg (soprano)
Valzacchi: Patrick Vogel (tenor)
Annina: Stephanie Lauricella (contralto)
Ein Sänger: Matthew Newlin (tenor)

This performance of Der Rosenkavalier has to be ranked a success, even though the much anticipated Anja Harteros did not appear. I noticed that I was hallucinating her voice throughout the first act.  For the first time the orchestra was not too loud.

Daniela Sindram projected a very boyish Octavian in a pleasing style.  The falling in love was beautifully staged in very traditional looking costumes.  Everything else seemed contemporary with the opera (1912). The opera was not upstaged by its production as is often the case these days.  The third act was not over-staged, and so remained clear.

I love, among many things, when Ochs says after finding out that Octavian and Mariandel are the same person, "I will never stop feeling astounded.  Such finesse."  He is genuinely impressed. The trio was spectacular.  At the very end the Feldmarschallin watches from a distance.

Forgive me for not writing a long essay.

Tara Erraught: The Rosenkavalierin

Soldiers, guns, bombs - and now the Munich Opera: an encounter with the Irish mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught. by Mirko Weber [Translated From Die Zeit, Sept 25,2014.  For background on this singer see here, here, and here. ]

Too feminine for pants roles? Tara Erraught can only ignore a debate like this. © Christian Kaufmann

There are singers in Ireland - sometimes vocal cliches - almost as many as the sand on the sea. Truly successful, next to Gilbert O'Sullivan, Sinead O'Connor and Bono, in the first rung are really only three: John McCormack, Catherine Hayes and Ann Murray. McCormack, born in 1884 and a real competitor to Enrico Caruso, was a glittering figure. He owned countless race horses, had a dozen Rolls-Royces, and despite all the worldly fuss felt most comfortable with folk tunes. It was McCormack's "typical Irish ability, to tell a story in song," which make him unique, wrote entranced Henry Pleasants in the standard work The Great Singers.

Of all these Tara Erraught, now 28, knew absolutely nothing, when she began to sing at ten. Tara Erraught from Dundalk, from the little corner of northern Ireland where only the Atlantic and then long nothing comes, just knew, that you can win more people's hearts with one voice than with a violin. At least if one is a beginner on the violin, on which Tara Erraught then still tried though her parents advised her, "I should just let it go." Erraught sometimes talks like a squeaking string, and, yes, indeed, one can understand the parents.

While Tara Erraught with dark flowing Irish "Os " and "Us" tells in English of her beginnings, she has some of the buildings of the Bavarian State Opera in view. She loves the house. In the auditorium namely shines the Munich Opera, unlike other houses, almost like velvet. Tara Erraught can see if someone before her becomes drowsy. And then? "Then I sing him awake," says Erraught whose laugh can almost shake the walls. Now she sits between these walls in Munich, walls that she still cannot quite believe in.

During the teenage years in Dundalk the Erraughts went again and again to Northern Ireland, to concerts, rehearsals, performances. Mama drove well, in spite of the hazardous undertaking. In this way, says Tara Erraught, has she learned to deal with states of emergency: "Soldiers, guns, bomb threats - all not without." [?] However, Tara Erraught knew at age 13 just as well that it should be opera and only opera in her life. A trip on holiday led to the Arena di Verona: Aida, her first complete opera evening as listener. " And that was it."

This article is from the current issue of die Zeit, which you can purchase online or at a kiosk.

Everything great starts with a little kick. The rest is a lot of practice, talent and luck. And wait for the right moment. Through her teacher Veronica Dunne Tara Erraught came to the Royal Irish Academy of Music, but right in the lesson she went afterwards. In 2008 she auditioned in Munich, was taken and overnight was on her own, in a strange city in a foreign country and in a foreign language." That was a hard time," she says today and doesn't want to sugarcoat anything; but somehow it was also the best time. Because Tara Erraught, was included in the Opera Studio, the young blacksmith of the National Theatre, learned to know the operation by heart, as a mechanic his engines. At first she hardly left the opera at all, studied from the lower machinery up to the cloakroom attendant in the gallery everyone and everything. And heard alongside the profound education - "nowhere it can be better than here" - so much repertoire as she could get.

There was from the beginning something special in that voice, a youthful, almost always ready to smile and to convince as mezzo-soprano, with which Erraught five years ago first made her debut as Cherubino in Mozart's Figaro and began, as is the Irish way, a story to tell: What came from the heart, could easily go to the heart. Here spoke not the innocent from the country, but one that lived close to the origin of the music, as natural as it went. And no one slept.

Her breakthrough, however, Erraught had two years later, when she stepped in for Vesselina Kasarova in Bellini's I Capuleti ei Montecchi. Nikolaus Bachler, the chief, had asked, in dire need: Could she be trusted? Erraught learned the Romeo in five days, put honestly, at the premiere came "a little Italian filler from the imagination" - and made it through. Glorious, it must be said. She sang Kasarovas series to an end - and found herself catapulted into a world in which you say "Hi, Anna" (Netrebko) and "Hello, Jonas" (Kaufmann ). "Awesome", logically, but also a bit "strange, Erraught finds.

It was the time when many after the great early success make the first major, fatal mistake. Erraught, however, trusted the right agent, Jack Mastroianni, but above all herself and her giant Irish family who keep her "grounded, if that is necessary. She knocked out the big Bellini and Donizetti roles that were already within reach, and strengthened her voice with Mozart and Rossini: Rosina and Cenerentola, Sifare in Mithridates. Mozart's Zerlina and Elvira, that can also be sung by a mezzo, were desired roles.

Erraughts career has skyrocketed, while she still is working on the fundamentals. Also, this may contribute to a down to earth attitude, emphasizes this major talent. Who on one hand sings supporting roles (Hansel in Humperdinck, Sesto in Tito) and on the other with enthusiasm sings the kitchen boy in Rusalka, the Second Lady in The Magic Flute or the voice of the unborn child in Frau ohne Schatten, is simply less likely to crash.

On the other hand, she knows very well how disrespect works in her profession. As she made her debut this summer at Glyndebourne, not in Munich, with Octavian in Strauss' Rosenkavalier, she was met with a wave of contempt from many UK papers. She was accused of being too bulky for the role, which in turn drew a discussion about why the figure will always be made an issue of only with girl singers. The stupid result of a male-dominated music criticism? Tara Erraught has the debate, as she says, largely ignored. She knows that she is no elf and doesn't want to be one. In Glyndebourne she knew that she was obligated to Richard Strauss, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the play. She sang, without fear. Fear on the stage is the worst adviser. But she sang very well.

Now she stands before the next fork. In the fall she debuts one after the other in Strauss’ Die schweigsame Frau und Janáčeks Die Sache Makropoulos, and at the Opera House in Washington, she is recognized as Angelina in La Cenerentola. At the same time Tara Erraught works - regularly with Brigitte Fassbaender now - on Lieder programs. Moreover, she remains, despite a Bavaria as a friend, Irin, she of course sings Danny Boy as an encore, "oh Danny boy, the pipes are calling", an ancient, ever new story. At Bayern Munich and Tara Erraught likes best, that on Sunday everything in the city is quiet and people meet for coffee and cake. "Fine," she says, that "nothing is happening". Break. "Except for opera in the evening!"

[I found this article charming and couldn't resist translating it.

The magazine Opera for August has a nice article about the Strauss year and an excellent viewpoint on the Erraught scandal.]

Der Rosenkavalier

Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier usually looks like this:

This is the time of Mozart who as a child played for the Empress Maria Theresa.  Or perhaps we should say it used to look like this.

Now in the Strauss year this year in Malmö, Sweden, it looks like this:

With vivid colors that suggest but do not evoke a period. Nothing really looks like this. 

At Glyndebourne it looks like this:

Instead of Faninal's home we are at his factory, it seems.

And finally at Salzburg we have this:

Glyndebourne Rosenkavalier

I have to say a short something about the live stream from Glyndebourne of Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier.  What do you want for a great Rosenkavalier?

You want great singing, especially from the three women who form the final trio:
The Marschallin Kate Royal
Octavian Tara Erraught
Sophie Teodora Gheorghiu
They were excellent and blended especially well.  They tidied up Tara's hair a bit from the publicity photos.

You want an asshole to play Ochs:
Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau Lars Woldt
We got one.

You want a sexy bedroom scene, and we got one even without a bed.  In this production the only furniture is long sofas with annoying wallpaper behind.  We also got nudity.  It looked like real nudity to me.

You want the dance that goes with Strauss's wonderful score.  You want a director who knows when the movements are supposed to happen.  We got that, too.  The cutest silly bit is when during the Marschallin's monologue Siegmund Freud is sitting behind her taking notes.

You want a fine orchestra and conductor who understand the romanticism of the score:  Robin Ticciati.

You want to see the falling in love in the Presentation of the Rose at exactly the right spot.  You want to see it in their eyes.

You want the love to leap out at you from the stage so strongly that you fall in love yourself.

Thank you.  I could ask for nothing more.

P.S.  Remember how I said there is no bad publicity?  Tara received by far the most applause. This is still available on demand.
#ad

Productions of Rosenkavalier

I watched the first act of a production of Der Rosenkavalier stream on sonostream.tv from Malmö, Sweden.  The first act is the only part that is truly wonderful, plus the trio at the end, of course.  It was done as though it were a clown troop.  The only pieces of furniture in the room were the bed and the little cart with the chocolate, so all those people that come in during the scene had to sit on the bed with the usual bed activities.  The costumes all had polka dots, like clowns.  I didn't notice big shoes, but I did notice polka dots on people's faces.  They needed a public opinion character like in Orpheus in the Underworld to disapprove of everything.  The singing wasn't good enough to compensate for this. 

Which led to the question could it be?  This led to the question could you modify the setting too radically at all?  I am remembering the DVD with Stemme and Kasarova, a duo who could actually compensate with fabulous singing.  But would a rich middle-class gentleman invite a Baron into his kitchen?

Remember Mimi in La Boheme must die on a certain chord or the scene makes no sense.  You should also recall that Richard Strauss's earliest compositions were tone poems with stories.  He bragged that he could compose the knives and forks.  And so he could.  What you are seeing and what you are hearing go together.

For instance, Mohammet's music describes how he moves about the stage.  Can a full grown man do this?  A ballet dancer, perhaps, which isn't at all what we got.

The plot cannot be moved from the period when women were traded like cattle.  When Sophie asks her father to let her out of the marriage, he refuses.  The whole rest of the story is Octavian proving that Ochs is unworthy, so daddy will not insist Sophie marry him.  If the plight of women is just a joke, then what's the point?

I immediately began to fantasize an Iranian Rosenkavalier with burkas since that part of the world still enslaves women.  But there might be bombs, so let's forget that.

The blocking and the opera are inseparable, perhaps more than any other opera.  It would be like a ballet without the choreography.  (Reminder--the ballet is the choreography.)

Unrelated comment.  If you watch enough opera in closeup, eventually you will notice that in the bows the singers often look at the prompter.  What's important here is that during the performance, you didn't notice them looking at him.

Incomplete

I felt that my life was somehow incomplete without the Carlos Kleiber 1979 Der Rosenkavalier.

Gwyneth Jones Marschallin
Brigitte Fassbaender Octavian
Lucia Popp Sophie
Manfred Jungwirth Ochs
Francisco Araiza tenor

I am truly astounded by how much I like Gwyneth Jones as the Marschallin.  She is very natural and sweet and sings like a lyric soprano.  Which she is.  To whom it may concern:  if you don't have any appropriate dramatic coloratura sopranos to sing Lady Macbeth, then don't put the damn thing on.  Don't go pick out some nice lyric soprano and ruin her life.

It is a truly wonderful presentation of the rose.  Lucia Popp describes for us the smell of the silver rose, and Octavian comes over to smell it, too.  This is usually blocked so that Octavian smells the rose and then looks up to realize that he has fallen in love.  Here he bends his head and Sophie bends close, it appears, to smell his hair instead of the rose.  Then they look each other very close in the eyes for the perfect moment.  Wow.

I once saw Brigitte in this role and was disappointed.  I must confess that here she is perfect.

This opera does not successfully update to a later era.  We are required to adore the sainted Kleiber, but for me he covers the singers far too much.  I often assign blame to the conductor, so here it is necessary to assign credit.  Musically all are performing the same opera.  If the conductor is blamed when each sings his own opera, he must also be credited when they all are all so clearly an ensemble.  His rubato is very complete.  What the hell does that mean, you may ask?  It means it's going on all the time and is very sophisticated.  Rhythm is the main thing in Rosenkavalier.  Intro to the third act is a tad chaotic.  IMHO.  This is due to the fast tempos throughout.  I like a schmaltzier Rosenkavalier.

This opera is like a ballet.  With a ballet someone writes down each step and where it goes in the music.  So it is with Rosenkavalier.  Here the black child carries in the small table with chocolate.  Here the servants line the chairs up in a row.  The entire opera is like that.  You could write the blocking into the score.

This film did not convert me to Kleiber, but I can see if you don't like romantic schmaltz, you might prefer this.

At Last Rosenkavalier

After decades of waiting, 3 to be precise, it is now possible to buy the magnificent Der Rosenkavalier from the Met in 1982, starring Tatiana Troyanos as Octavian, Kiri Te Kanawa as the Marschalin, Kurt Moll, Judith Blegen, The Tenor Luciano Pavarotti as the tenor with James Levine conducting.

For Tatiana Troyanos.
#ad

26 January 1911

It has been pointed out to me by the Mad Scene at Opera Australian that today is precisely 100 years of Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier. Find a little Rosenkavalier to hear before the day is over.

You could start here.



Footnote. All my life I've known people who complain about her diction, so let's make something clear. If you speak the language, you can understand every word.

And you simply must watch this.

Writing about Rosenkavalier

I have written often about Der Rosenkavalier. We are told in the intermission of the Met simulcast that it was initially called Baron Ochs. We're glad it was changed. We want it to be about a teenager who is lucky in love, and not about an old man who isn't.

I write here about the characters, why we love them, why we don't. Here I analyze the Marschallin.

I wrote here about performances I have seen. And here is a wonderful quote from Schwarzkopf.

Here I review Joyce Didonato's performance as Octavian.

This DVD from the Zurich opera is my first experience of a non-traditional Rosenkavalier.

This post gives a preview of Renée's performance, with Ochs in Lederhosen. The men look like Nazis.

I went again last night to see the encore and took a friend. She had learned Sophie but had never seen it staged before. I understand all the words and in this traditional setting know exactly what all the movements will be. All that changes is the voices and faces. This was my third viewing of the Ochs of Kristinn Sigmundsson, and I must say he grows on me.

This is my opera, and I never seem to tire of it.

Susan and Renée together again

This picture of Renée Fleming and Susan Graham is from the New York Times.

Today I attended the Metropolitan Opera HD presentation of Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier. I am something of a Rosenkavalier freak. I'm even starting to understand all the words.

Conductor: Edo de Waart
Production: Nathaniel Merrill
Marschallin Renée Fleming
Octavian Susan Graham
Sophie Christine Schäfer
Tenor Eric Cutler
Faninal Thomas Allen
Baron Ochs Kristinn Sigmundsson

It is necessary to dislike something, right? Eric Cutler as the tenor was lame.

Placido Domingo was adorable as the host. He talked to Renée about her long friendship with Susan Graham and elicited the quote, "We used to say we were the only ones we kissed." Clearly opera singers spend most of their free time obsessing over their private lives, like everyone else.

The production is very traditional, one of those productions that is intending to show you what it really looks like. The Marschallin's bedroom, for instance, looks exactly like a period Viennese palace bedroom, complete with the heaters built into the walls. The skyline seen through the windows is really Vienna, though the viewpoint would seem to be entirely imaginary. The second act looks good but does not allow for Sophie's Duenna to look out into the street and see all the action she is reporting to Sophie. She looks very foolish prattling on about things she can't possibly know.

All the ancient Rosenkavalier traditions are followed. The chocolate looks exactly as it should, but comes with sugar tongs. Do people put sugar into chocolate? Everyone bows precisely to the Princess and backs out of the room. The chairs in act II are positioned exactly where they always are.

Now I've gotten all that out of the way and can talk about the performances. I hope I'm not required to be coherent. Towards the end I started muttering "wonderful" to myself over and over. It was simply amazing, the best third act ever. God is in the details, and there were too many details to take in all at once. I'll have to see it again.

What sets Renée Fleming apart from possibly everyone is her ability to actively relate to the other people on the stage. It is those eyes and reactions that bring the drama to life. The Marschallin is the greatest character in all of opera, and Renée played her as a living, loving, exciting woman. She is someone we know, someone who knows she is having an affair with someone too young to know what he really wants. The phrase "halten und nehmen, halten und lassen" (hold and take, hold and leave) is the plot of the opera. Take love when it comes and let it go when it leaves. She does this better than any Marschallin I have seen. Her third act is awesome.

It even worked with Ochs. "Komm' aus dem Staunen nicht heraus! Der Feldmarschall - Octavian - Mariandl - die Marschallin - Octavian. Bin von so viel Finesse charmiert, kann gar nicht sagen, wie." (I will never get over my astonishment. The Fieldmarschall, Octavian, Mariandl, the Marschallin, Octavian. I am charmed by so much finess, and can't really say how much.) They look one another in the eye, and we see for the first time that this admiration is completely sincere. Perhaps they will see one another again, and he will ask once more for her protection.

I have seen Susan Graham in quite a few pants parts, and I must say Octavian is her masterpiece. She has the big ungainly body of a seventeen year old and moves around in it with the same insecurity. She seems completely natural. Often women playing young men seem to be a parody of a man, but Susan's Octavian is real. She is the perfect real partner for this most real Marschallin.

Someone at the Met is creating this magic. Someone is leading these already magnificent singing actors to produce the performances of their lives.

A great Rosenkavalier is a feeling like nothing else, something one wishes one could hold on to forever. Thank you, my darlings.

Jonas does Rosenkavalier

This is so delicious I must post it.



I've never seen it staged with the Marschallin paying the least attention to the tenor. Nice to see she is no fool. The staging is fascinating. The eating spaghetti is also cute.

There's not enough Der Rosenkavalier in my life, and not enough Jonas Kaufmann either.

We are always the same age inside. Gertrude Stein.

My own love affair with opera began and may well end with Rosenkavalier. There is nothing like it. Will this be her masterpiece? I must admit I suspect yes.
#ad

Zurich Der Rosenkavalier

I am comforting myself with this DVD of Der Rosenkavalier from the Zurich Opera.

The second act is completely incongruous. We are expected to believe that Herr von Faninal is so completely middle class that he entertains the Count Rofrano and the Baron Ochs in his kitchen. No one is that middle class. And von Faninal uses the kitchen appliances? How are we possibly to believe this? Octavian stabs the Baron with a kitchen knife.

At the inn in the third act Octavian and the Baron sway back and forth in time to the waltz music. This Rosenkavalier is a fairy tale of no particular time and place.

The best bit in this whole production comes when the plot is unraveling and Sophie sees the relationship between Octavian and the Marschallin, she unselfconsciously walks over and puts her hand on the Baron's shoulder.

I have long suspected that I needed to see Vesselina Kasarova as Octavian. I could not have been more right. It is her masterpiece. She dominates the action as no one I have seen before. And I've seen a few of these.

Each actor is bringing us new insights. The unusual production makes this possible. Rosenkavalier is almost always choreographed with extreme precision according to ancient tradition, but not here. Without violating the meaning of the piece, each scene is not what we are used to. For instance, I have never seen it begin with the Marschallin and Octavian already out of bed.

Our Marschallin is not so brave. In moments of crisis she faints. Nina Stemme is not the best singing Marschallin I've seen, but she is the most tragic and emotional. She does not quite believe how well she has predicted this day. Today or tomorrow or the next day.... In the action she actively blesses the union of Octavian and Sophie, something I have never seen before.

Malin Hartelius is perfect for Sophie, serious and only a little bit arrogant. When she finally marries, it will be as a grown woman with her eyes open.

How can I possibly describe the Ochs of Alfred Muff? If he were not precisely this big a pig, we would surely love him. Life moves only forward. Sophie knows that she may have made a mistake. (There is no way I could possibly have gotten to Cleveland.) She pulls herself together for the happy ending, and briefly we hear the theme for "when was I ever this happy" from the presentation scene. When she sings "It's a dream, can't be real," we somehow know that she is right.

The magic flows together at the end, as indeed it must for a truly successful Rosenkavalier. When it comes time to wail, they do. If you can bear the unusual bits, it is a truly beautiful Rosenkavalier.
#ad

Rosenkavalier fuer Kinder

Der Rosenkavalier is for love. It is amazing to me to think that there are people who don’t love it. I have seen it many times and have my favorites. My favorite Marschallin, of course, is Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in all three media: live, on recording, and on video. Other favorites are Renée Fleming believe it or not, and Kiri Te Kanawa. My unfavorite Marschallin: Felicity Lott. She did not happen for me.

My favorite Octavian remains Tatiana Troyanos. She is too mature by far, but I adore her anyway. Second is Susan Graham, especially with Renée Fleming. They were fabulous together. My unfavorite Octavian was Brigitte Fassbaender. I hated it. My friend D shares my opinion on this point, even if we disagree about the favorite. He likes Sena Jurinac. Fassbaender played him like a 12 year old. Disgusting.

Favorite conductor: Karajan, Sir Charles Mackerras, Jimmy Levine. Unfavorite: Donald Runnicles, apparently.

My favorite overall performance of Rosenkavalier: the Met version with Kiri, Tatiana, Judith, Jimmy et.al. And don’t forget Luciano. There must be contract conflicts that prevent a professional DVD from being issued. Go quickly because it’s now available from House of Opera.

It has to be exactly the same way each time. Mahomet must be black and wear a turban. The chocolate must arrive on a tiny table with a tiny tray and pot and an even tinier cup. In the second act there must be Louis XV chairs scattered around the stage. When Octavian and Sophie converse, they must sit on them. When Ochs is wounded, the chairs must be lined up in a row, and he must half lie on them. When he takes his wig off in Act III, he has to be bald. It isn’t allowed to vary anything except the decorations. I have seen a modernized production and didn’t mind it. But….

So how was last night’s version at the San Francisco Opera? Shall we obsess through each minute of the opera? I was very annoyed with the way Runnicles constantly cranked the volume of the orchestra up and down. He seems to have the idea that the orchestra should play as loud as it can any time no one is singing. Then any time the singers start, he can crank them back down again. Or not. Covering the singers is pretty common for him. This constant cranking up and down leaves a sense of seasickness. How nice to conceive it as a single piece and to think of the singers as part of the ensemble. Some time he should try it.

Joyce DiDonato made her debut as Octavian in this series. I think she has the idea. She was quite free and masculine in bed with the Marschallin. In her man clothes she seemed familiar with how to behave in the world of royalty. For me this is essential and is what Brigitte Fassbaender completely failed to do. Joyce was cute as Mariandel, too. I liked her portrayal very much and enjoyed her singing. But she is so tiny. This is the first time I have seen this boy of seventeen years and two months making love to an older woman and wondered if I were watching illegal activity. She is believable. He is very immature physically and his voice has not changed yet. I think she requires a very young looking Sophie, something not quite achieved by Miah Persson.

There were here and there unusual bits of business. In the last section of the first act the Marschallin actually pushes Octavian away. This was excessive and completely unnecessary.

Ours was the second string Marschallin, Martina Serafin. We felt that we had lucked out because the first stringer, Soile Isokoski, was said to be inadequate in her personification of the role. Martina fully possessed her Marschallin. She was passionate, pensive and in charge by turns as all Marschallins must be. She lacks only a proper awareness of Strauss phrasing to become a great Marschallin.

At the end Octavian and Sophie ran out laughing like the two children they obviously are.

________________

A friend has asked me to say more about Rosenkavalier.

I felt that the Swedish soprano Miah Persson was made up much too sophisticated and grown up in Rosenkavalier to be believable with the very young looking DiDonato. I saw Persson in London as Susanna, a role for which she is well suited. The same woman singing Susanna and Sophie? I guess it happens. Kathleen Battle did it. Susanna is almost a character part, a lyric soprano. Anna sings her and she is virtually dramatic, but she does it because Susanna gets all the sexy bits. Sophie is definitely a soubrette, the high voice in the ensemble, and I don't hear Persson in that Fach at all. Her Sophie came across as pretty sophisticated and arrogant. Sophie's arrogance must be perceived as charming and naive, and I didn't feel that.

The scenes are long. When they are familiar, as they certainly are with me, every note is part of a familiar dance where you know all the steps. The last act definitely goes on too long. Once Ochs says "Leopold, wir gaenge!" he should leave, but there's ten minutes more of music. Strauss just wants to compose more notes. It doesn't really work.

In her blog Joyce DiDonato comments about Kristinn Sigmundsson's portrayal of Ochs and his concern to make him seem more fully human. What is one to make of this upper class gentleman from the country? The Marschallin is polite to him while considering him beneath her. I think Strauss and Hofmannsthal are working against Sigmondsson. Sophie needs to feel like a victim so we will rejoice when she is rescued by Octavian, so Ochs must feel like a fate worse than death. We need to be appalled when he sings, "Keine Nacht wird zu lang." If Sophie is a bitch and Ochs is a nice guy, will we care at all? The entire opera is really from Octavian's perspective.

It is an opera of relationships between the four characters: Octavian, The Marschallin, Baron Ochs and Sophie. To everyone except the Marschallin Octavian must feel sophisticated and in charge, at least that's how I always feel it. He is already a popular public figure, or why else do the crowds cry out his name in the presentation of the rose scene?

The Marschallin is the deus ex machina who swoops in and rescues all from the chaos Octavian has created. It is a complex dance with a great many steps. It is pleasing even when it isn't perfect.

Elisabeth

The July issue of Opera News is devoted to Mozart, and Charles Scribner III has made the pilgrimage to Switzerland to interview the 90 year old Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, one of the twentieth century's greatest interpreters of the divine Mozart.

She is especially lavish in her praise of Leontyne Price's work, especially her Donna Anna. I vaguely recall seeing this on television in the days long ago when opera was broadcast live.

She says some interesting things. "Why do you want to write about music when you can make it?" Indeed. I often wonder about this myself, but since my voice is kaput and I can't really play the piano, all that's left is conducting and voice teaching, two of the many subjects I studied at Indiana.

She also says, "Everything you need to know about living life is in Der Rosenkavalier." Halten und nehmen, halten und lassen.

Elisabeth's Marschallin

I try to see or hear the controversy, but I cannot. This film of Der Rosenkavalier is from 1962, the same year I sat in the right aisle of the balcony circle of the San Francisco Opera and transformed into an opera fan. She inhabited the role so completely that there is no way to distinguish between them.

I see for the first time how she orders Octavian around like a child, tells him what to do, where to put his stuff, when his heart will wander from her, and finally when to leave.

Perhaps they mind the fact that she sings the whole thing in a kind of sotto voce. She cared more about controlling the contour of the phrase than she cared about consistency or breadth of tone. I hear it, but I do not mind it. There are no subtitles with this film, but every word is completely understandable, a kind of sung speech that feels as natural as conversation. There is so much to her performance, so much detail, so much truth, so much love, that she becomes that woman.
#ad

Rosenkavalier

Even in the most loved operas one does not love everything. In Rosenkavalier why is it that Sophie knows all about Octavian but nothing about the man she is to marry? Why is she shocked to see that the baron is a mature man from the country? With Sophie one sympathizes, but one does not love her.

But one loves the Marschallin more with each passing year. "How can it truly be that I was tiny Reselie, and someday I will be an old woman? While I inside am always the same?" Indeed. One loves her for asking while she is still young and beautiful.

It will remain a mystery how she knows about Octavian's plan. When he provokes a fight with the baron, she is probably told all about it. Perhaps she slips some coins to the Italians when no one is looking. Octavian creates the scandal that makes Faninal reject the baron as a son in law, but it is the Marschallin who smooths the ruffled feathers and restores serenity to all. "Half the time happy, half the time sad." She is a woman to adore, one of the great creations of art.

Die Zeit

Die ist ein sonderbar Ding.

There has never been a video of the incredible Rosenkavalier of Kiri te Kanawa, Tatiana Troyanos, Kurt Moll, Judith Blegen, and of course Luciano Pavarotti, but I have copies of both broadcasts.

My first Rosenkavalier starred Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. I was a student at San Francisco State and got in as an usher in the balcony. All the seats were full of people and I sat in the aisle on the right side of the balcony circle. The other students said, "Be sure to see this!" I had never heard of her. I told you I was a philistine. At that time I had been in more operas than I had seen.

This was before supertitles. She was electric, exciting and absolutely real. I have been ever since fanatically mad for Rosenkavalier and never get enough of it. I sing along with the Marschallin and used to have the motto "halten und nehmen, halten und lassen" written on my board at work. She is right--it is something to strive for, to grasp love when it comes and let it go when it leaves.

Renée Fleming and Susan Graham did an excellent Marschallin and Octavian together with quite a lot of personal rapport.

Wie eine Sanduhr.

I suppose in this era of supertitles I should translate. " Time, it is an extraordinary thing. Like an hourglass." In your mind you should sing along.

#ad