Der Rosenkavalier

by Richard Strauss, libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal

seen at Covent Garden on 17 January 2017

This new production for the Royal Opera House was directed by Robert Carsen and conducted by Andris Nelsons. It featured Anna Stéphany as Octavian, Rachel Willis-Sørensen as the Marschallin, Sophie Bevan as Sophie and Matthew Rose as Baron Ochs. (The principal attraction in this season was to hear Renée Fleming as the Marschallin in her farewell performances of the role, and Alice Coote as Octavian, but they were not singing at all performances.)

The production, designed by Paul Steinberg (sets) and Brigitte Reiffenstuel (costumes), was set in 1911, the year of its premiere, rather than the 1740s as specified in the libretto. The justification for this is that the both times were periods of uncertainty and aristocratic melancholy; indeed that the librettist and composer deliberately chose to echo the ethos of their own time in the earlier period of the Empress Maria Theresa.  The choice of 1911 worked well because of a modern audience's sensitivity to the charmed but sleepwalking age immediately before the First World War, particularly as Vienna, the city in which the action takes place, was unknowingly in the last days of its Austro-Hungarian imperial splendour, before becoming the capital of a much reduced Austrian republic.

The social distinctions and prejudices are easier for us to read in 1911, with Sophie's father much more obviously a parvenu, and his attitude to the aristocracy and willingness to sacrifice his daughter to an advantageous marriage, all the more reprehensible. Equally, Baron Ochs, the embodiment of boorish aristocratic entitlement, can be seen as more predatory, more misogynistic, and less of a pantomime buffoon, when surrounded by lackeys who are obviously militaristic bully-boys as much as servants. It may be stretching things too far, however, to have placed the final act in (an admittedly high-class) brothel, as it is unlikely that Faninal and his daughter would ever appear there, even after a mysterious summons, still less the aristocratic and imperiously correct Marschallin.

However this may be, the first two acts provide sumptuous contrasts. The Marschallin's apartment is overwhelmingly opulent, richly furnished and with grand paintings hung on all the walls. The main doors to her bedroom open to reveal further vistas of reception rooms and corridors all looking unchanged for centuries (though the paintings range from historical family portraits to several more 'up to date', pictures of the Emperor Franz Joseph). In the second act, Faninal's reception room emphasises his connection to the armaments business with a tastelessly large frieze of Greek warriors, and aseptic pillars and furniture.

The visual splendour is of course less than half the attraction of an opera such as this. The main point is the music, both orchestral and vocal. The principals were excellent. Anna Stéphany proved an attractive boyish Octavian, bringing off the difficult part of the adolescent who swears devotion to the older Marschallin only to fall for Sophie on first setting eyes on her. There is also the business of being a woman singing and playing the part of a boy (Octavian) pretending to be a maidservant ('Mariandel'), and she carried this off well too, not least maintaining a masculine swagger when 'she' might have been expected to be more decorous. Here. the brothel setting came into its own, as decorousness was evidently in short supply in such establishments. Rachel Willis-Sørensen was a dignified and thoughtful Marschallin, while Sophie Bevan sang the taxing role of the ingenue Sophie (with some stratospheric high notes) with real presence. Matthew Rose's Baron Ochs was an odious hedonist, all too sure of himself, and playing up the accidental wound in his leg with a staggering insouciance. One could see why his attendants enjoyed his company, just as much as one could see why Sophie would immediately detest him. He was just able to keep his own sort of dignity intact as the Marschallin dismissed him; this is far more satisfactory than portraying him as a mere cardboard villain.

The Baron's departure in the third act leaves the stage clear for one of the most sublime pieces of opera, the trio sung by the Marschallin, Octavian and Sophie. It was a ravishing culmination of a fine musical experience. After such heartfelt soul-searching, the final moments of the opera revert to its more comic side, with a piece of business for the Marschallin's (non-singing) attendant. Here, the reminder of the cataclysm to come was superimposed, with the Baron's men backlit in a fruitless and fatal encounter in the trenches. This image, often used dramatically in all sorts of productions in these centenary years of the War, are perhaps becoming a little clichéd, but here they add more weight to the notion that so much of human experience is transient, the lesson that the Marschallin has ruefully accepted for herself, even though the young lovers are still oblivious.