The Salzburg Festival
Der
Rosenkavalier in a Bordello!
By Irving Spitz
There was a startling new production of Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier at the Salzburg Festival this year. Time and its inexorable progress
is a major theme in this operatic masterpiece. All the characters reflect
on the past, the present or the future. This is what is foremost on the mind
of the thirty-two year old Marschallin, wife of a Field marshal. She fears
that it is only a matter of time before her current lover, the seventeen
year-old Count Octavian, drops her for someone considerably younger. While
the Marschallin reflects on the past, her lecherous and boorish cousin, Baron
Ochs, who is engaged to Sophie, muses on the immediate present and the rich
dowry he is expecting from Faninal, Sophie's father, on the occasion of his
marriage. Sophie, a mere teenager and just out of a convent, as
well as the young Octavian bridge both present and future.
Der Rosenkavalier is set in Vienna in the 1770's during the reign of
the Austrian Empress, Maria Theresa. Canadian director Robert Carsen has
fast-forwarded the current production to Vienna immediately prior to the
First World War, at the time that Strauss and von Hofmannsthal were in fact
working on this opera. At the end, with the conclusion of the famous duet
between Sophie and Octavian, we see an interesting new twist. Instead of
the curtain falling on the two lovers and the Marschallin's young servant
who has been sent to retrieve Sophie's handkerchief, in the current production
the stage is suddenly populated by a large number of soldiers and Octavian
is served his draft papers, presumably to enlist in the coming First World
War.
The cavernous stage of the Grosses Festspielhaus always represents a challenge
to any director. Act I is set in the bedchamber of the Marschallin. To put
this into realistic proportions, Carsen surrounded it on both sides with two
anterooms in which her liveried servants could congregate. In Act II, Carsen
utilized the whole stage, which was transposed into the salon in the palace
of Faninal and was dominated by a huge table set for a wedding feast. An ostentatious
mural formed the backdrop. The highlight was the dramatic appearance on horseback
of the impeccably dressed Rosenkavalier, Octavian, ready to present the silver
rose to Sophie.
Carsen set Act III in a bordello. Here
the different rooms were utilized for the usual and expected activities,
including nudity, stripping and various sex acts. Although this was somewhat
overdone and it upset many in the sophisticated audience, the approach worked
and represented an interesting new take on what is usually shown as a private
room in an inn. In passing, it is worth noting that this kind of production
with overt and explicit sexual overtones is currently the “in thing” in
many European operatic productions.
Der Rosenkavalier ends with the most sublime trio and duet for the sopranos,
among the most beautiful vocal music composed in the twentieth century. The three
sopranos gave their all with wonderful ensemble singing. To his credit, Russian
conductor Semyon Bychkov didn't draw out this conclusion with exaggerated sentimentality,
as is often done. He led a powerful well-paced performance with the Vienna Philharmonic
although on occasion, especially in the fortissimo passages, the singers had
a hard time competing with the orchestra.#
