Der Rosenkavalier
Royal Opera House
Der Rosenkavalier is the most self-conscious of comedies, as well as being largely concerned with self-consciousness. It has two kinds of joke: one, the broad practical jokes indulged in at enormous length at Baron Ochs’s expense; the other, the sophisticated humour of youthful illusions being dashed, while others rapidly spring up to replace them. Rosenkavalier is subtle enough, just, to have counterpoises to these deflationary devices. So Ochs, though an impoverished randy aristocratic lout, also has genuine dignity, moments of thoughtfulness where the thoughts aren’t about how irresistible he is to young girls. Octavian, though ashamed of the rapidity with which his vows of eternal love for the Marschallin with which she launches the opera, producing a Tristan-parody of dialectics about ‘I’ and ‘You’ to follow up the more blatant one of the raunchy prelude, has enough poise and grace to be a movingly chastened figure, a fitting contributor to the glorious trio near the end of the opera.
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