Richard Strauss - Der Rosenkavalier / Solti, Te Kanawa, Bonney, Howells, Haugland, Covent Garden

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This Rosenkavalier is a nearly perfect combination of music, singers, staging, and conducting. It examines the whole spectrum of love from every perspective: youthful idealism, consenting adultery, predatory lechery, and autumnal regrets. Richard Strauss's music is exquisite; the emotional climate includes tenderness, sophistication, and sentimentality, with a healthy dose of near-slapstick. This is a treatment to live with on a desert island.

Kiri Te Kanawa garners most of the acclaim in what is probably her best role, but the entire cast is superbly chosen and works together in fine-tuned ensemble--not only the impulsive Octavian of Anne Howells, Barbara Bonney's sweet, timid Sophie, and Aage Haugland's, boorish, pretentious Baron Ochs, but everyone, including servants, domestic spies, and the social-climbing Herr Faninal. The sets and costumes are sumptuous; the sound and video images well defined. Georg Solti conducts with a subtlety and lyric lilt not always found in his work. --Joe McLellan

Description

This opulent Royal Opera production by Oscar-winning film director John Schlessinger stars Kiri Te Kanawa in what "deserves to be ranked…among her finest achievements".(Financial Times).Also stars Anne Howells, Aage Haugland, and Barbara Bonney. Conducted by George Solti. Color, 197 minutes. Subtitles in English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese.

Customer Reviews:

Delightful.......2007-01-04

I thoroughly enjoyed this performance. Both the singing and the acting were superb. I really cannot imagine that Te Kanawa's Marschallin can be bettered and Anne Howell's Oktavian was an eye-opener for me. If you want a moving and well acted performance you can't do better than this one.

Traditional Presentation.......2006-11-14

Since this was to be my first DVD Rosenkavalier, I opted for a traditional production which I knew this to be as I had seen it before. Negative things first: Solti (with exceptions)has become one conductor whose reputation has sagged with his death and all his much vaunted energy that he brings to the score do do it any favors--they don't call him the screaming scull for nothing. There are many moments when a sense of r epose is called for and this simply is not in his vocabulary--at least as often as it should be. TeKanawa has an ideal voice for this music, not to mention the physical beauty. It has been reported that she has felt somehwat lacking in her knowledge of German and truth be told the text is not as inflected as I would have wished; it is also ironic that she has recorded both for CD and DVD Capriccio a text driven work if ever there was one. I do not agree with David Hamilton in the Met Guide to Videos who makes needlessly snide remarks about her appearance (resembling Carol Channing) and that she lacks focus and a knowledge of the text to make the third act what it should be. The voice is lovely and Te Kanawais clearly a stimme diva. Having said that it must be admmitted that the tears she shed at the end of the first act would belie the statement that her knowledge of the text was inadequate. Barbara Bonney along with Helen Donath have owned the role of Sophie and with good reason. Bonney is lovely, sings beautifully. Anne Howells is a British mezzo whose work is unknown to me. The camera is cruel in her case, making her look older than the Marschallin. Vocally (if we must have a mezzo and apparently no soprano since Jurinac as undertaken the role) she is a lyric mezzo and sings well and acts with an appropriate amount of swagger and boyishness. Haugland is a boorish Ochs, again well sung and acted. If only the conductor had been a Kempe or well, you fill in your favorite Strauss conductor.

Silver Rose blossoms pure in this Rosenkavalier........2006-02-28

Hard to fault this wonderful, traditional set. No Euro-trash here! Te Kanawa is very moving as she becomes the Marchellin in love with youth and fully aware that the moment's passion will end. Everyone exceeds expectation and Solti, for once, is more gentle in the pit than he is want to be, especially in Wagner and in his wonderful London set of this opera. Strauss and his characters are allowed to be themselves unmarred by interpretative "I can do better than they did...." syndrome. Baron Ochs appears as the foolish, unrefined person he is, but not as a totally vulgar and unsympathetic oaf. Haugland plays Ochs perfectly and sings with lush, opulent tone. As Octavian and Sophie, Howells qnd Bonney sing to the nines, Howells with full, strong, even voice and Bonney with stratospheric clarity and warmth. A very moving performance that belongs on your shelves along with the other royal opera dvd gems; Romeo et Juliette, Boheme, etc.

Beautifully acted, sung performance.......2005-01-23

Der Rosenkavalier remains one of the most popular operas, despite being extremely long (all stage productions cut to some degree, and even then it's 3 hours or more of music) and a storyline that upon examination is a trifle thin. Strauss's opera also places exceptional demands upon the singers -- they must sing beautifully, act the part, and convey both humor and feeling. This 1985 performance from Covent Garden succeeds on all requirements: the cast is uniformly strong, the production is beautiful and elegant, and I shed a tear or two at the final trio.
Anne Howells is the Oktavian, a 17-year old count in love involved in a May-December affair with the Feldmarschallin. Howells is perhaps the least well-known of all the principals in this video, but Oktavian is onstage for practically the entire opera, and I think Howells is superb. I love the gusto with which he/she challenges the lecherous Ochs in Act 2, and her game turn as a "chambermaid" in Act 3. The only drawback I'd mention is that her voice is a bit thin and reedy, and lacks that last touch of vocal glamour. But if her voice is not as silvery and bright as the most legendary Oktavians (Sena Jurinac for example) Howells still convinces as an ardent young man. As the naive Sophie, Barbara Bonney is near-perfect. She looks girlish and young, and has the kind of bright lyric soprano that works so well for this role. She also avoids overly cute, precious acting. I love her reactions to the Baron when she first meets him.
Kiri te Kanawa is of course the Feldmarschallin, and hers was the real surprise of the video. I expected beautiful, elegant singing, but te Kanawa's portrayal was also dignified and heartfelt. At the end of Act 1 she buries her face in some flowers and whens he looks up there are real tears streaming down her face, and all of a sudden my preconceptions about te Kanawa were wiped away. Aage Haugland is hilarious as the dirty old "dowry hunter" Ochs, and he also wisely does not make Ochs truly hateful. He's not supposed to be -- in the end, his story is as sad as the Marschallin's. His screaming at being "wounded" in Act 2 and also his "wooing" of Sophie are priceless.
The two drawbacks: Georg Solti conducts with his typical bluster, all blaring horns and IMO little sense of the quick, breezy Viennese waltzes that permeate Strauss's score. Kultur's documentation is also poor -- it doesnt even say who the Italian singer is.

Totally Ravishing!!.......2004-11-22

I tend to spend most of my opera viewing time in the Italian and French repertoire, but have always enjoyed the ravishing music of Rosenkavalier in excerpts which include "the presentation of the rose" and the final trio. If more lovely music has ever been penned, I haven't heard it, but listening to all of it was a bit tedious, to tell the truth.

But seeing it, and thus enjoying it as musical theatre? Not until I got this disc.It converted me completely. This is simply a wonderful experience, which I cannot praise too highly.

Dame Kiri is definitive as the Marschallin: her vocal production is literally amazing, and , yes, I have heard her sing a lot! She floats some pianissimo tones that bring tears to the eyes! She also acts well: the first act soliloquy, where she ponders on the effects of age is splendid.

Anne Howells is vocally excellent as Octavian, with acting second only to that of Federica von Stade, who always does well in those "trousers roles"

Barbara Bonny has the ideal voice for Sophie, and uses it with splendid artistry. Aage Haugland is perfect as the incredibly gross Baron Ochs, and the supporting cast all do very well. Solti conducts definitive Strauss.

This DVD was made from a taping of a 1985 performance from the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, so the audio and video are not quite state of the art. Subtitles make following the German easy.

But it is the totality of the performance as musical theatre that I found so captivating; this performance just "works" from beginning to end. All of the elements that make up a great operatic performance come together from beginning to end.

I cannot say enough good things about this disc. The decision to buy it is a "no brainer"!

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