Date of composition: 1909-1910
Premiere: 26 January 1911 at the Royal Opera House, Dresden, under the direction of Ernst von Schuch
Duration: 42 minutes
Performances by the Berliner Philharmoniker:
First performance of selections on 13 March 1917 under the direction of the composer
In mid-February 1909, Richard Strauss received a message from Hugo von Hofmannsthal that left him rather excited: “In three quiet afternoons here, I have produced a complete, entirely fresh scenario for a comic opera, with vivid comedy in the characters and situations, a colourful and almost pantomime-like transparent plot, and opportunities for lyricism, jest, and humour.” When, a few weeks later, Strauss received the first scenes of that comedy which, after some back and forth, was to bear the title Der Rosenkavalier, his excitement turned into enthusiasm: “My work flows like the river Loisach; I am composing everything, down to the last syllable.”
Barely two years later, on 26 January 1911, the long-awaited world premiere took place in Dresden. Already on opening night, there were 21 curtain calls. Demand was so great that at subsequent performances, hundreds had to be turned away each time. From Berlin, opera-mad citizens of the capital travelled to Dresden on special trains. And Hofmannsthal could proudly report: “For me and for Strauss, it is by far the greatest success we have ever had.”
There are many reasons for the overwhelming success of Der Rosenkavalier. On the level of plot, the piece contained everything a good comedy needs: humour and eroticism, masquerade and revelation, dramatic development with surprising twists, and – at least on the surface – a happy ending. At the same time, it succeeded in virtuoso fashion in combining art and entertainment, immediacy and modernity. In contrast to Strauss’s previous operas Salome and Elektra, which had shocked parts of the public, this modernity lay less in the musical material itself than in the way it was handled. Both the music and the text of Der Rosenkavalier are not only crafted with extraordinary artistry, but also highly self-reflexive. With playful irony, they allude to the history of the genre – from Molière’s comedies to Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, from Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro to Verdi’s Falstaff. At the same time, the music is so immediately graspable and so richly pleasing that one can, if one wishes, simply ignore its modern fractures. Finally, on the eve of World War I, the work also struck a historical nerve. The distinctive “Viennese tone”, articulated especially in the many waltz allusions, and the concept of a world that is half realistic and half fictitious matched a widespread bourgeois sensibility of melancholy, while also inviting listeners to dream their way out of reality.
The Der Rosenkavalier Suite compiled by Franz Welser-Möst presents key stations of the opera in condensed form. The first part takes us into the Marschallin’s bedroom, beginning with the end of the passionate night of love and closing with the melancholy reflection of the beautiful lady of the house. In the second part, two of the opera’s most famous passages are juxtaposed: the presentation of an artificial silver rose, in which Octavian, acting as the Rose-Bearer, and Sophie, the daughter of a wealthy citizen, fall in love to silvery-bright sounds, and the vulgar love song of Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau, accompanied by the parodistic waltz “Ohne mich, ohne mich jeder Tag dir so bang”. The third part, finally, combines the satirical, pantomime-like masquerade scene at the beginning of Act III with the famous closing scene, poised between melancholy, ecstasy, and subtle comedy.