Der Rosen­kavalier

After Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Richard Strauss had brought their first collaboration, Elektra, to the stage – a work that was powerful in many respects – they followed it up in 1911 with Der Rosenkavalier. It may no longer sound archaically harsh, but rather bounce with waltz-like softness, yet it is still a powerful piece, when the fabulously wealthy Herr von Faninal “sells” – no: “bartered away“; perhaps most accurately: “delivers“ – his only daughter Sophie as a bride to the dissolute country nobleman Baron Ochs of Lerchenau, a coarse rake and practicing Don Juan. Faninal knows full well that money can buy anything. But if one truly wants to belong in the late heyday of Theresian Vienna (as well as that of the fin de siècle – and presumably the present day too), one needs a lineage that, if not flawless, is at least as long as possible. Origin is the future.
Whatever pedigree the old Ochs of Lerchenau may boast, the young Count Octavian Rofrano has at least that much. On top of that, he’s strikingly handsome and, moreover, a fine fellow. So refined, so perfect, and above all so utterly different from everything around her that when he presents her with a silver rose, Sophie feels as if she might die right then and there. “Where have I ever been before and felt so blissful?“ she asks herself, knowing: “I must return there!“ And since returning is always such a tricky thing, especially when it comes to the past, she senses: “Even if it means my death.“ It will never again be as beautiful as it could have been. In their second collaboration, Axel Ranisch and Nicholas Carter explore the finely chiseled aestheticism of the Rosenkavalier score and stage what is arguably the most melancholic comedy of all time as an icy fairy tale.