Rosenkavalier, Der, << ROH zuhn kah vah LEER, dehr, >> is a comic opera in three acts by the German composer Richard Strauss . The German title means The Knight of the Rose. It refers to an old marriage tradition by which a young man presents a silver rose to a bride on her wedding day on behalf of her husband-to-be. The libretto (text) for the opera was written in German by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The opera was first performed in Dresden, Germany, on Jan. 26, 1911.
The story is set in Vienna during the late 1700’s. After a passionate orchestral prelude, the opera opens with two of the principal characters, Marie-Therese and her 17-year-old lover, Count Octavian Rofrano. Marie-Therese is known as the Marschallin, because she is the wife of Field Marshall Prince von Werdenberg. After having spent a blissful night together, the two are now exchanging expressions of love in the Marschallin’s bedroom. When her coarse-mannered cousin Baron Ochs suddenly arrives, Octavian hides and disguises himself as a maid, Mariandel. Ochs informs the Marschallin that he intends to marry the youthful Sophie von Faninal. He is calling on the Marschallin to ask her to nominate a young knight to deliver the silver rose to Sophie. When Octavian appears as Mariandel, Ochs immediately tries to flirt with the “maid,” who manages to escape. After Ochs leaves, the Marschallin receives some morning visitors—a tenor (who entertains her with a grandly sentimental aria), poor orphans, a milliner, an animal trainer, a notary, and the “intriguers” Valzacchi and Annina. When Octavian eventually reappears as himself, he finds the Marschallin alone and in a melancholy mood, preoccupied with thoughts regarding the passage of time. Despite Octavian’s protests, she tells him that she knows he will leave her one day for a younger and more beautiful woman. After he departs unhappily, she sends a servant after him with the silver rose to present to Sophie.
Octavian arrives at the home of Sophie’s father, a newly ennobled rich merchant. In receiving the silver rose, Sophie immediately falls in love with Octavian and he, with her. When Ochs arrives, he outrages the young couple with his vulgar behavior. After promising to protect Sophie, Octavian provokes Ochs into a sword fight and wounds him slightly. In the resulting uproar, Octavian conspires with Annina and Valzacchi, who are currently working for Ochs. They play a trick on the baron at a seedy inn, by arranging a rendezvous between him and “Mariandel.” The two meet in a room in which Annina and Valzacchi scare Ochs with various ghostlike appearances. Eventually, Annina appears surrounded by children, claiming to be Ochs’s deserted wife. The uproar brings first the innkeeper and his servants, then the police commissioner, then Sophie and her father, and lastly the Marschallin. When finally alone with Sophie and Octavian, the Marschallin sadly gives up her lover to Sophie and leaves the two young people alone in their new-found love.
In Der Rosenkavalier, Strauss combined his highly romantic style of composition with touches of the style of the Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to produce a glittering score. The composer emphasized the light-hearted Viennese quality of the opera in a number of lilting waltzes. These waltzes are sometimes performed separately in concerts.
Austrian writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s libretto for the opera (the second of six he wrote for Strauss) is an outstanding work of literature on its own, glamorously portraying life among the aristocracy in Vienna in the 1700’s. In many productions, the sets for the first two acts achieve a spectacular effect, representing luxurious Viennese palaces. The work also calls for magnificent costumes and an exceptional degree of elegance and wit in its stage directing.
