[Met Performance] CID:217310
New production
Der Rosenkavalier {201} Metropolitan Opera House: 01/23/1969.
(Debuts: Celeste Scott, Elizabeth Anguish
Review)
Metropolitan Opera House
January 23, 1969
Benefit sponsored by the Metropolitan Opera Guild
for the production funds
New production
DER ROSENKAVALIER {201}
R. Strauss-Hofmannsthal
Octavian.....................Christa Ludwig
Princess von Werdenberg......Leonie Rysanek
Baron Ochs...................Walter Berry
Sophie.......................Reri Grist
Faninal......................Rudolf Knoll
Annina.......................Rosalind Elias
Valzacchi....................Andrea Velis
Italian Singer...............Nicolai Gedda
Marianne.....................Judith De Paul
Mahomet......................Celeste Scott [Debut]
Princess' Major-domo.........Gabor Carelli
Orphan.......................Mary Fercana
Orphan.......................Pamela Munson
Orphan.......................Dorothy Shawn
Milliner.....................Elizabeth Anguish [Debut]
Animal Vendor................Gene Allen
Hairdresser..................Harry Jones
Notary.......................Paul Plishka
Leopold......................John Trehy
Lackey.......................Charles Kuestner
Lackey.......................Lloyd Strang
Lackey.......................Lou Marcella
Lackey.......................Edward Ghazal
Faninal's Major-domo.........Robert Schmorr
Innkeeper....................Charles Anthony
Police Commissioner..........Lorenzo Alvary
Conductor....................Karl Böhm
Director.....................Nathaniel Merrill
Designer.....................Robert O'Hearn
Production a gift of Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
Der Rosenkavalier received eighteen performances this season.
Review of Irving Kolodin in the Saturday Review
Alt Wien has rarely looked so resplendent at the Metropolitan as it does currently in Robert O'Hearn's sparkling settings for its new production of Strauss "Der Rosenkavalier." The palatial boudoir for Act I, slightly (and suitably) garish interior for the parvenu Faninal's reception hall in Act II, and dimly clandestine "Extrazimmer" of the Inn (Act III) are the product of the same drawing board that has provided the Metropolitan with its fine "Meistersinger," "Frau ohne Schatten," and "Hansel und Gretel." As a totality, it is the most spacious and theatrically satisfying "Rosenkavalier" design the Met has had since it started giving Strauss' comic masterpiece in '13.
This is not really saying as much as might be surmised for the very first was succeeded in '22 by another from Vienna (both based on the classic concept of Alfred Roller) which, in various guises, served the Metropolitan downtown. For the '55-'56 season, Rolf Gérard was commissioned to perform something like cosmetic surgery on the old flats, and provide a forecurtain. That was the scenic history of "Rosenkavalier" at the Metropolitan, until that indefatigable benefactor, Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. provided the necessary green stuff to give the green light for O'Hearn's fantasy and taste.
Mostly traditional in its elements, O'Hearn's creation is nevertheless not conventional. This relates not so much to the option of putting the bed of Act I on stage left rather than right, but rather to the placement of entrances and exits in ways to facilitate the action and broaden the normal stage picture. In Act I, this is achieved by providing a big bay window (St. Stephen's is visible in the distance) to frame some action of the levée scene; in Act II, by huge, transparent doors between the reception area and the staircases leading to it; and in Act II, by conceiving the room in which Ochs has his rendezvous with Octavian-Mariandl not merely as a "Zimmer" but as a vaulted private chamber in a "Rathskeller," say.
Best of all, the O'Hearn production gives every promise of durability. This is well, for it encourages the hope that it will, eventually, frame a cast of performers truly worthy of it. The present one, under the always authoritative if sometimes unrelentingly forceful direction of Karl Böhm, has the names to suggest a rounded result. But, as the indoctrinated operagoer knows, names are no guaranteed answer to the query" "What did you do last night?"
The names, those of Leonie Rysanek as the Marschallin and Christa Ludwig as Octavian have prior Metropolitan connotations. Both performed the roles in the bygone downtown house, though in rather different chronological circumstances. As of 1959, when Ludwig was first seen as Octavian, she was a young performer of almost unbearable promise, straining at all the fences that hedge in the young. Rysanek's Marschallin, also new in the same year, was the effort of a performer well launched on her career. The passage of time has influenced both, rather more to the advantage of Ludwig than Rysanek - or, to depersonalize it, to the benefit of Octavian rather than the Marschallin.
As most operagoers are aware, Rysanek has a powerful top, a questionable midrange, and a veiled muffled lower register. Much of the important writing for the Marschallin in Act I (which she dominates) is in the middle and lower registers with, consequently, too much thick, unfocused sound. Together with her tendency to play the part in a rather hard, unappealing way, this diminished the buildup of sympathy that should surge in her direction in Act III when she graciously gives up her lover, Octavian to his new-found love, Sophie. Act III is Rysanek's best, vocally, for the power she commands at the top enables her to dominate the trio to a degree given few Marschallins. Taken together, the two acts in which Rysanek appeared (The Marschallin is absent in Act II) left an impression, with me, of a calculating woman well served by Octavian and reluctant to let him go, but not particularly involved emotionally.
On the other had, Ludwig has curbed a good deal of the exuberance which characterized Octavian's romping about the last time she performed the part here. In the complicated assignment of a female impersonating a male (Octavian), who is called upon to impersonate a male impersonating a female (Mariandl), Ludwig had her greatest success with the greater complication. As the supposed servant maid Mariandl, leading the easily led Ochs into an assignation designed to reveal him as an unsuitable spouse for Sophie, Miss Ludwig was both funny and sad, always singing beautifully and making her verbal points effectively. As the masculine Octavian, ardent and inexhaustible, Ludwig was neither illusive nor convincing, She did not seem to have settled in her mind certain matters of posture, gesture and attitude (physical as well as mental). This, to be sure, is not easy to do. But it has been done (best, in recent times, by Risë Stevens), and need not be condoned when it hasn't been done. Vocally, Ludwig was equal to all the needs put upon her, and in some special circumstances -- as in Acts II and II - sang superbly. But vocal finesse in only the beginning of virtue in this role.
In a descending relationship of quality was the Sophie of Reri Grist and Walter Berry's Baron Ochs. Miss Grist has, securely and dependably, the first attribute that a Sophie must have for consideration: a sure command of the arching top line in the "Presentation of the Rose" in Act II. But she is once this moment has passed, consistently deficient in the substance of sound or the necessary range of colors to define Sophie as a person rather than merely a high soprano. This was the most evident in Act II where, in a transport of liberation at the prospect of having Octavian rather than Baron Ochs as husband, she was able only to provide a birdlike chirp, rather than the sound of a rejoicing young woman. Dramatically, her projection was largely in terms of timidity.
That the high point of the performance was, nevertheless, the trio of Act III is in itself a critical commentary on what had preceded. Berry's Ochs has a variety of interesting aspects. It is not the traditionally bloated provincial, gluttonous of physical indulgence as well as of food, But the lack of plumpness in the figure (which can be accepted) is accompanied by a lack of plumpness in the sound (which cannot). For a smaller theater (such as Vienna's where he recently sang the part under the direction of Leonard Bernsstein), Berry's tonal output may be acceptable. On the broader scale required in these Lincoln Center surroundings, it was deficient at the bottom and really impressive only at the top (meaning, in sum, that he is, essentially, a baritone rather than the bass-baritone required). As a concept, it was full of intelligent effort - but a lean Ochs? As well as to make plausible a plump well fed Cassius.
Given such a variety of elements, a truly successful "Rosenkavalier" could emerge from only two sources: a powerful integrated dramatic supervision, or an overwhelmingly influential effort by the conductor. This "Rosenkavalier" was not blessed with either. Nathaniel Merrill's direction solved, successfully, the primary problems of movement, displacement, and interchange of personnel on and off stage. But he had not, so far as I could determine, done much to stimulate characterization among those performers who had not brought a characterization with them, or achieve a totality among the characterizations that were offered. As an instance, Rosalind Elias as Amina and Andrea Velis as Valzacchi were two all too trite embodiments of their conspiratorial parts. A little more wit, a little less whimsy, would have been welcome. Their good vocal qualities could have been used in the role of Faninal, whose new interpreter (from Vienna) was dull-sounding, none too presentable likeness of the social climber, Rudolf Knoll.
Böhm's Straussian credentials are of the best, and he has performed with distinction at the Metropolitan in "Frau ohne Schatten" and "Ariadne," among other operas by this composer. Perhaps it was the special circumstances of a first performance that caused an overstress on some aspects of the score and an understress on others (charm, sentiment, lightness). More lift, less push, animation rather than agitation, humor rather than comedy would add to the pleasures of what, at this moment, is better to see than to hear.