3h 18min | Comedy, Drama, Romance | TV Movie
Director: Brian Large
Georg Solti ... conductor
Stars: Kiri Te Kanawa, Anne Howells, Aage Haugland.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0253600/
First performed 1911.
On 26 Jun, posted on a different production: Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier (1961), 6
At the time, I complained about the lack of subtitles (viewed online). And sure enough, the subtitles made all the difference, plus, of course, the familiarity I gained from that production.
I don't really understand why this opera is popular. The audience certainly weren't laughing at the antics, which I didn't find particularly funny. Perhaps a more manic production would help, but I doubt it.
The music is ok, but none familiar from hearing concert excerpts (like a Nessun dorma). Perhaps once I've learned more and watched more, I'll appreciate this more.
The cavalier (translated as gentleman in the subtitles, but it's more than that, I think) is a trouser role, meaning a woman is playing a man. I've come to learn these are often young men being portrayed, hence the desire for a high voice. This one is supposed to be 17. Here the cavalier goes ahead and kisses his women lovers, which makes things much more comfortable than the '61 performance when it was so awkwardly avoided.
One of the things I find odd about the story: the princess (Kiri Te Kanawa, one of my favorites) is featured heavily in the first act, absent for the 2nd and most of the 3rd. You don't really need her character, and with a little rewriting this could be an opera of much more reasonable length. (The Simon book has the anecdote that Strauss conducted a performance many years after composing this, and supposedly commented to the first chair how long the thing was.)
Even with subtitles, I still needed all 4 of my opera synopsis books to answer my questions regarding the agents who guide nearly every turn of the plot: the Italian intriguers. They're introduced at the Princess' levée (access to royalty) as trying to sell her a gossip/scandal sheet, which she refuses. But they spot the Baron as someone who is not averse to intrigue, and attach themselves to help him.
The confusion happened when the intriguers clearly switched sides, delivering a deceptive message to him. I finally found a reference that said the transition is not in the libretto, although some productions will show the Cavalier buying their loyalty without song. That's a far cry from the usual lyric repetition with which plot points are delivered.
I like the costumes and sets, and we get a balance of filmic closeups and full proscenium shots. Baron Ochs has a good bass voice, but is another #MeToo perp.
Worth noting: the ceremony of having a cavalier deliver a silvered rose to the intended bride was made up by the librettist, so says at least 2 of the 4 books. It struck me as a very stupid idea to really use a strapping young officer as messenger for an old fat suitor, even if the marriage is thoroughly arranged beforehand. Of course the young bride is going to fall for the cavalier, especially in comparison with the actual groom. Instead, find a hunchback, or an old hag to deliver the token. But without the cavalier, we have no story.
BBC TV, cond. Solti; 7
P.S. (7/10, 8 pm) In the news tonight was a story about sex education in high school that includes discussion of consent due to the #MeToo movement. I mentioned that Ochs was such a perp. In the opera, he chases a chambermaid (actually the cavalier in disguise), gropes his intended in the first moments of their meeting, and sings of liking feisty women who refuse him. He gets punished pretty well by the cavalier, the Italian intriguers, Ochs' intended, and their friends and servants. And the predator behavior, echoed by one of Ochs' servants, is shown as negative, but expected.
I'm not so optimistic to think this 1911 opera, in a 1985 production, is really somehow feminist, or even gentlemanly. Ochs punishment is comedic (the closest thing to Funny in the production), and no one comes to actual harm (neither he nor his attempted victims -- that we saw). And squashing Ochs puts the cavalier in demi-heroic light, paving the way for the young lovers to triumph. So this doesn't amount to real justice against a sexual predator (again, we don't have evidence that he really assaults anyone), but it does imply that such bad behavior deserves retribution. So I've realized a reason to like this a bit more.
I do find the private dining room, where Ochs is first tormented with apparitions jutting out of small doors in the floor and in the walls (no mirrors covering them in this production), a very strange concept. Why would an inn build a private dining room with trap doors? Wouldn't they need to be trustworthy, keeping their customer's confidence? The purpose for having such doors already is spying, or maybe staging surprises. And here, the wallpaper matched on these doors, so they couldn't have just been installed. Weird.
