Rosenkavalier at War

Over the last few years I've reviewed a joint production of Der Rosenkavalier by La Scala Milan, Teatro Real Madrid and Paris Opéra ['Time is a Strange Thing', 8 October 2011] and a Florence Opera production at which Zubin Mehta made his debut conducting the opera ['Important Debuts', 9 May 2012]. Rosenkavalier is so universally known that it does not need any presentation. Even in Italy where in March 1911 it had a rather lukewarm reception at La Scala (although it was sung in translation, whereas one of the marvels of this Komödie für Musik is the perfect match between words and music), the opera has been staged quite frequently in most major theatres during the last twenty years.

It is only natural that in the year of the one-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of Richard Strauss' birth, the festival he helped create would offer, along with a major program of symphonic and chamber music, his most Austrian opera...