Richard Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier (1911)

It's very impressive, really, how versatile Strauss was. He could write intense tragedies, but also this sophisticated romantic comedy, and then a kind of meta-opera with Ariadne auf Naxos (even if that last one is maybe not a total success). Quite a thing.

So the idea is that this teenage count, Octavian, is having an affair with the much older, married Marie Thérèse, usually referred to as the Marschallin (ie, the wife of a marshall), and if there's another opera which treats an adulterous couple sympathetically and isn't a tragedy, I haven't seen it. Which is interesting enough, and shows that you're dealing with a different kind of operatic sensibility. None of the kind of Victorian attitudes towards these things that you see so often; not that I don't think many such operas are great anyway, but a different outlook is actually quite refreshing. The Marschallin has it in the back and sometimes front of her mind that, given their age difference, this romance is an extremely temporary thing, and that at a certain point he's definitely going to leave her (you'd think that the fact that she's married might also play a part in her reckoning, but that never becomes relevant, and her husband, who's off hunting somewhere, is never really treated of).  Then the Marschallin's oafish, womanizing, totally self-absorbed cousin, Baron Ochs, blows in; he's going to get married (he needs the money), and the Marschallin volunteers Octavian to be the title character--ie, the guy who, per tradition, is meant to see the bride-to-be before her husband does and present him with a silver rose symbolizing their union. So, he's off. What happens next...okay, that joke is getting a bit repetitive. Anyway, the two of them fall pretty much instantly in love. But how to deal with the inconvenient baron? Maybe send him to a brothel and come up with a fun trick to make him feel like he's losing his mind to break things off, maybe! And then, an awkwardness amongst the triangle of lovers until the Marschallin graciously withdraws.

This performance I saw--this specific performance, from May 13, 2017--was Rene Fleming's last performance as the Marschallin (a signature role for her), and possibly--at least to date--her last operatic role period. The symbolism seems almost too perfect. Oddly enough, I don't think I'd actually seen her perform 'til now, although I didsee her as the introducer to the HD performance of the first-ever opera I saw--Tosca--and as a result, I've always sort of associated her with opera writ large. It certainly makes sense to retire on the top of one's game, and for the record, she still sounds great. This is also Elīna Garanča's last performance as Octavian, which I suppose makes sense, but I've gotta tell you: for a forty-one-year-old woman, she is eerilyconvincing as a seventeen-year-old boy. It's common for outlandish villains to steal shows; given how good the cast is in general, I don't know if he quite does it, but Günther Groissböck certainly comes close as Baron Ochs. I don't have any basis for comparison, but per the interstitial interview with with Groissböck, this is an unusual way to play the character--he's typically presented as mostly a clueless old fogie, but here he's younger, more active, generally more obnoxious. Whatever it is, it's quite good. Finally, Erin Morley as Sophie is eager to obey her father's wishes but also independent-minded in an appealing way. Interesting to note that there are no large tenor roles here, which is very unusual. Strauss's music is Strauss, complementing well the manic tone and pace of much of the piece.

Here's my question: how old do you think the Marschallin is or should be? Fleming was fifty-eight at the time of the performance, and with my trademark excessive literal-mindedness, I kind of just thought of the character as being that age. But of course, you could play her much younger; somebody or other claims that she's "supposed" to be thirty-two; I can't find any confirmation that that was Strauss' intent, but...maybe. It would probably make more sense for a teenager to be attracted to someone who's only moderately too old for him. On the other hand...she really would be only very moderatelytoo old, which seems to attenuate the whole thing a little. And the whole business about the transience of their love seems to lose a bit of its poignance if you realize that, oh, she's still young; she can easily find another lover if she wants to. Difficult to say, really. Not difficult to say that I love Strauss, however.