Opera Review: Their Reverence For This Lovely Flower

The Bayerische Staatsoper presents Der Rosenkavalier.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Table for one: Adrienne Pieczonka as the Marschallin in Der Eosenkavalier.

Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier is his most beloved opera. Strauss fused rigorous compositional technique, catchy waltzes and superb vocal writing  to a charming, sentimental libretto by his longtime collaborator Hugo von Hoffmannsthal. On Thursday night, the Bayerische Staatsoper brought this opera to the stage of Carnegie Hall under the baton of its boss Kirill Petrenko. This was the opera companys first concert performance at the New York venue in its long history.

Opera Review: The Last Waltz

Many partings mark the Met's new Rosenkavalier.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Kiss the girls: Octavian (Elīna Garanča) woos the Marschallin (Renée Fleming) in Act I of Der Rosenkavalier. Photo by Ken Howard © 2017 The Metropolitan Opera.

 The end of an era is the subject of Robert Carsen's fascinating new production of Der Rosenkavalier which bowed at the Metropolitan Opera on Thursday night. Updated to Vienna in 1910 (the year of the opera's genesis) this show crackles with nervous energy, a wild party on its final round of the night. Fittingly, this show also marks Renée Fleming's final appearances as the Marschallin in this opera, a part she has played at the Met since the year 2000.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Der Rosenkavalier

Viennese waltzes and bed-hopping: Strauss' comedy gets a new staging.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Elīna Garanča (top) and Renée Fleming in a publicity photo for the
Met's new production of Der Rosenkavalier.

Renée Fleming has owned the role of the Marschallin in Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier at the Met for the last two decades. Here, she appears in a new production opposite a new Octavian, mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča. 

The Richard Strauss Project: Der Rosenkavalier

Strauss' immortal comedy veers from the bedroom to the drawing-room.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Detail from Rafal Olbinski's poster for the Opera Pacific's production of Der Rosenkavalier.
Art © Rafal Olbinski Estate and Opera Pacific

Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hoffmannsthal are one of the most famous composer-librettist teams of the early 20th century. Der Rosenkavalier ("The Knight of the Silver Rose") which walks the line between raunchy sex farce and polite comedy of manners is the most famous example of their collaboration, matching Strauss' elaborate orchestra to a comic opera that would have made Lorenzo da Ponte proud.

The Polls Are Closed!

The next Superconductor Audio Guide series will focus on Richard Strauss.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Richard Strauss stuffed the ballot box and will be the subject of the next Superconductor Audio Guide retrospective.
Photoshop and award design by Paul J. Pelkonen.

Superconductor has completed its first-ever reader's poll and the winner is....Richard Strauss!

The German composer is your choice to be the focus of the next series of Superconductor Audio Guides, the regular series that tracks the life of a great composer through a chronological output of operas and other pieces, and offers analysis of some of their major compositions. Last year the operas of Wagner and Mozart have been written up in this fashion, and this year it's Strauss' turn.

Richard Strauss represents the last bastion of German Romanticism. A masterful composer and conductor, he started as a creator of vivid, sometimes shocking tone poems that employed giant orchestras to create incredible effects. Today he is best remembered for the introduction to his tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra, used to memorable effect by Stanley Kubrick in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Later in his career, Strauss moved to opera, creating a string of works that ranged from the shocking and violent to drawing-room comedies. He wrote fifteen operas in total. About half of them are in the standard repertory, with rare works popping up when an ambitious conductor and a cast of good German singers are able to revive one. Seven Strauss operas will be looked at in this coming series, with another three added if we're all having a reasonably good time. The plan is as follows:

Salome: Strauss' third opera and first genuine success, the story of the Princess of Judea and the death of John the Baptist

Elektra: Greek tragedy, German orchestration. Blood everywhere.

Der Rosenkavalier: A turn toward Mozartean comedy and Strauss' biggest stage success.

Ariadne auf Naxos: The ultimate "desert island" opera mixes Greek drama and Italian commedia dell'arte

Die Frau ohne Schatten: A "quest" opera: think Die Zauberflöte on a Wagnerian scale.

Arabella: Another Viennese comedy, bittersweet and lovely.

Capriccio: Strauss' last opera is a meditation on the nature of opera itself.

If you voted for Giuseppe Verdi or Giacomo Puccini, they will both be covered in future blog installments. As of this writing, the plan is for seven (or ten) Strauss operas, followed by the early operas of Verdi (Nabucco through La Traviata) the major works of Puccini Manon Lescaut to Turandot) and finally, the late operas of Verdi (Simon Boccanegra to Falstaff. Yes there are gaps in that list.) That's the plan as of this writing but things could of course change. 

In Strauss' Comedy, A New Ingénue

Late casting change in Der Rosenkavalier.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

"The Presentation of the Rose" from Act II of Der Rosenkavalier.
Photo © 2009 The Metropolitan Opera.

In a late breaking item (courtesy of  Lisa Hirsch at The Iron Tongue of Midnight) soprano Erin Morley will take over as Sophie in the Metropolitan Opera's 2013 revival of Der Rosenkavalier. The Richard Strauss comedy, one of the composer's most beloved comic creations, opens Friday at the Metropolitan Opera House.

Metropolitan Opera Preview: Der Rosenkavalier

The last run for the Met's classic 1967 production of the Strauss comedy.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Marina Serafin and Alice Coote in a tender moment from Act I of Der Rosenkavalier.
Photo by Jonathan Tischler © 2013 The Metropolitan Opera.

Der Rosenkavalier is a rambunctious Viennese comedy, a bitter-sweet coming of age story that chronicles Octavian's transition from a sweet, adulterous relationship with the Marschallin (Marina Serafin) to eventual marriage to Sophie von Faninal, a 15-year-old ingenue played by Erin Morley. (She is a late replacement for Mojca Erdmann, who is recovering from pneumonia.) Edward Gardner conducts.

Opera Review: Sex and Duct Tape

Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera: Live in HD.

by Paul J. Pelkonen

Renee Fleming (left) and Susan Graham in Act I of Der Rosenkavalier.
Photo by Ken Howard © 2009 the Metropolitan Opera.

Saturday's high-definition telecast of Der Rosenkavalier was a definitive performance of Strauss's romantic comedy. (While I already reviewed an October performance of this production when I saw it in the theater, this was my first time going to a "Met Live in HD" telecast in a movie theater with a live audience.) Opera on the big screen is no substitute for the live experience of the opera house, but it is a fascinating alternative, whose potential is finally being harnessed by the Met in the Peter Gelb era.

These Met telecasts have a raw, "unedited" feel to them. Opera on video should be as close to the "live" experience, not the splice-and-dice "editing wizardry" that characterized VHS releases in the 1980s and '90s. The live feel is helped by interesting "intermission segments" which combine cast interviews (conducted here by Placído Domingo, who is not conducting the performance) with backstage footage of the opera's set changes and technicians at work. My favorite moment: watching a stage tech repair a crack in the 42-year old set with a roll of duct tape--something the audience would normally never see.