Der Rosenkavalier, opera review: Handsome production is a springboard to new ideas

Robert Carsen's production offers a magnificently shaped score and a uniformly strong cast, writes Barry Millington
Much-loved: Renée Fleming bids farewell to the stage
© ROH. Photograph by Catherine Ashmore
Barry Millington19 December 2016

Setting Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier in 1911, the time of the opera’s composition, is hardly original, but Robert Carsen, in his handsomely designed production, uses the concept as a springboard to launch some interesting new ideas.

The lift-off is gradual, with a largely conventional first act. The Secession-style establishment of the arriviste Faninal (the superb Jochen Schmeckenbecher), however, makes a striking contrast with the rich fabrics of the ancien régime. Faninal’s business is in armaments: we are on the cusp of war, after all (as we are reminded in a telling final tableau). The Presentation of the Rose is a stunning chiaroscuro evocation, while the dawning love of Octavian and Sophie is represented by white-jacketed dancers – the apotheosis of the Viennese waltz.

Baron Ochs (the excellent Matthew Rose) is all the more insidious for not being a mere country bumpkin: he and his cronies are in military uniform and their ogling and manhandling of the hapless Sophie are standard behaviour in this aggressively all-male environment.

Act 3 takes place in a real bordello and the serving wench Mariandel (Octavian in disguise), in a curious reversal, is here a cabaret artiste who taunts Ochs. Female emancipation is in the air, a fact underlined by Sophie Bevan’s feisty Sophie.

Andris Nelsons shapes the score magnificently. A uniformly strong cast is headed by Bevan, Alice Coote (uncomfortable as Mariandel but soaring gloriously in the final trio) and the much-loved Renée Fleming, bidding farewell to the stage.

Until Jan 24, Royal Opera; roh.org.uk

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