Episode 002: Der Rosenkavalier with Ben Miller
Time, nostalgia, and very fancy lesbians? It must be Der Rosenkavalier. Writer, historian, and co-host of Bad Gays Ben Miller joins us for a discussion of Richard Strauss’s four-and-a-half hour work of where both nothing happens and everything happens. Topics include: whether Rosenkavalier is a comedy or tragedy, the Viennese aristocracy, opera queens and mezzosexuals, the “German she-devil” who sued the Met (and won), and one of opera’s most problematic characters.
Simon says:
“A completely uncut version of the opera, without intermissions would take almost four hours to perform. All the more remarkable is it that a light comedy can sustain its charm so consistently that its length has not prevented its becoming the most popular of all the operas of Richard Strauss, a staple in the repertoire of almost every great opera house in England, the United States, and Central Europe (Latin countries take to it a little less kindly).”
Der Rosenkavalier: The story
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Yes, that’s an orgasm you’re hearing in the overture as the orchestra rises and rises, struggling to catch its breath until it finally erupts in a blaze of horns. The music subsides into birdsong and we’re in the Viennese bedroom of the 32-year-old Marschallin (also known as the Feldmarschallin — the wife of a field marshall whom we happily never see onstage). She’s just deflowered 17-year-old Octavian, and they begin their morning with a duet about how great the other was last night.
Octavian has clearly caught feelings for the Marschallin, but before anything else can happen her country cousin, the Baron Ochs, barges in. To avoid a scandal, Octavian (who is sung by a woman) dresses up as the Marschallin’s maid. Ochs likes what he sees, but he is in Vienna to marry Sophie, a young daughter of a nouveau-riche weapons manufacturer. He has absolutely no chill about this.
The Marschallin’s morning routine continues with a host of visitors, including a trio of orphans begging for money and an Italian tenor who sings a romantic, lyrical aria about a hero who is armored against love until he’s undone by the glance of his beloved. This sets the Marschallin off on an existential crisis fuelled by nostalgia; the aria the tenor sings is one she knew from her youth and now she is no longer the debutante about to be married and time is a funny thing.
After Ochs leaves and Octavian changes back into his clothes, the Marschallin continues to be in her feelings about this which is very confusing to the baby himbo she’s just deflowered. She enlists him for a tradition in courtly marriages: presenting a silver rose to the betrothed on behalf of the bridegroom. Octavian is frustrated and leaves, agreeing to be the Marschallin’s Task Rabbit, but not happy about how she pushes him out of her palace.
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The villa of Sophie’s father. Sophie is the Tracy Flick of 18th-century girls marrying into the aristocracy, and has studiously prepared for her new role as wife. With a grand orchestral flourish, her knight of the rose (or Rosenkavalier) — aka Octavian — arrives. And while Octavian had been armoring himself against love after his argument with the Marschallin, he is undone by Sophie. The feeling is very mutual and very, VERY sapphic.
This newfound lust dissipates with the entry of Baron Ochs and his servants, who bring chaos in their drunken wake. Sophie and Octavian yadda yadda yadda a plan to get her out of marrying Ochs so they can be together. Meanwhile, Ochs tries to secure a rendez-vous with the Marschallin’s maid, “Mariandel” (once again, aka Octavian). Despite simply three plot points, this act takes an hour as Strauss pushes the orchestra to the limits of functional harmony.
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An inn where Ochs has arranged his meeting with “Mariandel,” which immediately goes off the rails. One of the Marschallin’s staff enters claiming to be Ochs’s wife, trailed by a gaggle of his supposed children. This apparently causes enough of a stir to summon the police, trailed by Sophie’s father who is scandalized by the mis-en-scène, especially when Ochs claims that Mariandel is his fiancée.
Before it gets too Noises Off, the Marschallin enters to sort everything out, breaking Ochs’s engagement to Sophie, ensuring he is not pursued by the police, and suggesting to Sophie’s father that she marry Octavian. The opera ends with a trio sung by the three female leads of the opera, with Octavian marvelling at the last 24 hours, Sophie entranced by the Marschallin’s grace, and the Marschallin lamenting the end of this brief fling. Sophie and Octavian are then left alone to sing a duet over their newfound happiness.
There’s also an incredibly problematic page character and a lot of waltzes.
Further reading
Allan Jefferson: Der Rosenkavalier (Cambridge Opera Handbooks) (1985)
Corinne E. Blackmer and Patricia Juliana Smith: En Travesti: Women, Gender Subversion, Opera (1995)
Charles Youmans: The Cambridge Companion to Richard Strauss (2010)
Michael Reynolds: Creating “Der Rosenkavalier”: From Chevalier to Cavalier (2016)
Playlist
“Di rigori armato il seno”
Helge Rosvaenge / date unknown
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