Richard Strauss - Der Rosenkavalier | Te Kanawa, Howells, Haugland, Solti (Royal Opera House 1985)

Composer: Richard Strauss
Librettist: Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Premiere: 26 January 1911, Dresden (Hofoper)
Language: German
Subtitles: English
Synopsis: https://www.opera-arias.com/strauss-r/der-rosenkavalier/synopsis/

Orchestra and Chorus of The Royal Opera House
Conductor: Georg Solti

Cast & Characters:
Kiri Te Kanawa: The Marschallin
Anne Howells: Octavian
Aage Haugland: Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau
Barbara Bonney: Sophie
Jonathan Summers: Herr Von Faninal
Cynthia Buchan: Annina
Robert Tear: Valzacchi
Marianne: Phyllis Cannan
Paul Crook: Host
Roderick Earle: Police Commissar
John Gibbs: Notary
John Dobson: Major Domo to Faninal
Kim Begley: Major Domo to the Marchallin
Dennis O'Neill: Singer

Rosenkavalier (The Knight of the Rose or The Rose-Bearer), Op. 59, is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from Louvet de Couvrai's novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas and Molière's comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac. It was first performed at the Königliches Opernhaus in Dresden on 26 January 1911 under the direction of Max Reinhardt, with Ernst von Schuch conducting. Within two months of its premiere, the work was translated into Italian and performed at La Scala. The opera's Austrian premiere was given by the Vienna Court Opera on the following 8 April. The work reached the Teatro Costanzi in Rome seven months later on 14 November. The United Kingdom premiere of Der Rosenkavalier occurred at the Royal Opera House in London on 29 January 1913. The United States premiere took place at the Metropolitan Opera on the following 9 December. A number of Italian theatres produced the work for the first time in the 1920s, including the Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi (1921), Teatro Regio di Torino (1923), Teatro di San Carlo (1925), and the Teatro Carlo Felice (1926). The Salzburg Festival mounted Der Rosenkavalier for the first time on 12 August 1929 in a production conducted by Clemens Krauss.

The opera has four main characters: the aristocratic Marschallin; her 17-year-old lover, Count Octavian Rofrano; her brutish cousin Baron Ochs; and Ochs's prospective fiancée, Sophie von Faninal, the daughter of a rich bourgeois. At the Marschallin's suggestion, Octavian acts as Ochs's Rosenkavalier by presenting a ceremonial silver rose to Sophie. But Octavian and Sophie fall in love on the spot, and soon devise a comic intrigue to extricate Sophie from her engagement, with help from the Marschallin, who then yields Octavian to Sophie. Though a comic opera, the work incorporates weighty themes (particularly through the Marschallin's character arc), including infidelity, aging, sexual predation, and selflessness in love.

Der Rosenkavalier is notable for showcasing the female voice, as its protagonists (light lyric soprano Sophie, mezzo-soprano Octavian, and the mature dramatic soprano Marschallin) are written to be portrayed by women, who share several duets as well as a trio at the opera's emotional climax. Some singers have performed two or even all three of these roles over the course of their careers. There are many recordings of the opera and it is regularly performed.