Richard Strauss: The Knight of the Rose

Strauss’ most popular opera, Der Rosenkavalier, has continued to fascinate audiences ever since its premiere at Dresden, on January 26, 1911. Indeed, the occasion sparked off such an uproar that railway companies had to bring in additional trains to enable the throngs of fans from all around Europe to come to Dresden. After his previous operas, Salome and Elektra, both tragedies filled with blood, Strauss decided to write a comedy which would come across as a modern-day version of Le nozze di Figaro: he himself dubbed Der Rosenkavalier a “Mozartian” opera. He commissioned the text from his best librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal; the two have been regarded as opera’s most distinguished creative tandem after Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte. The opera offers a comic story involving a wealth of identity switches, with four principal characters: the Marschallin, her young lover Octavian, Baron Ochs and his potential fiancée Sophie. The score’s many waltz melodies set a contrast to the Theresian Vienna where the action is set; thus the “Rococo atmosphere” is by design anachronic. As the Marschallin looks back at her bygone youth, the story becomes permeated with a poignant note of deep melancholy, signalling the end of an era not only in this opera. Richard Strauss was a regular source of material for staging at the New German Theatre (today’s Prague State Opera), where Der Rosenkavalier was mounted in six different productions (for the first time on June 7, 1914), including three conducted by Alexander Zemlinsky. Strauss himself conducted the opera’s performance here on June 18, 1922. Later on in this theatre’s history, during its era as the Smetana Theatre, Der Rosenkavalier received one production, conducted by Rudolf Vašata and staged by Karel Jernek; between its premiere on January 31, 1964, and March 19, 1968, it was given 53 repeat showings.

Premiere: May 26, 2011