The melancholy of dying Austria
“Time is a strange thing” – new production of Der Rosenkavalier
Hofmannsthal’s comedies are rather like a guide for understanding the golden Austrian inclination for consensus and cautious wisdom. In Der Rosenkavalier the Marschallin represents a new, more insistent and intense version of Habsburgian renunciation: in the noble way in which she gives up her lover to the younger rival she embodies the graceful, sensual melancholy of the waning Austrian empire. Hofmannsthal created few such lively and poetic characters as this warm-hearted woman, an experienced and rather tired expert in the art of love, who in the splendour of her charm feels pursued by the shadow of relentless time. Like many figures in Austrian literature her age too is an Indian summer, the time when woman in the full blossom of her beauty senses the first gentle signs of decline. The Marschallin stands back and humbly accepts her defeat; her style idealises the entire attitude of the sinking Habsburg civilisation. The aristocracy was rarely shown with such penetrating sophistication, revealing or rather creating a myth about human values in decline.
Hofmannsthal’s comedies are the most lively and impressive representation of Austrian civilisation, in particular in the way they focus on the aristocratic aspect. Melancholic sensuality and graceful renunciation are reflected in the waltzes of Der Rosenkavalier. In an ironic and wistfully nostalgic tone this comedy modifies the figures and characters of the Austro-Hungarian world: the attractive faithless lady, the gallant young man, the vain womanising baron, the shy young girl, the honest, sound citizen, the charming chambermaid and the compliant innkeeper.
Der Rosenkavalier is one of the last expressions of humanity and of Austrian art: the drama and conflict between desire and reality that is resolved in melancholic harmony and a sense of proportion and decency inherited from the Habsburg civilisation once again form and destroy in an illusory reconciliation the encounter between man and things. It was noted that Austrian literature had no place for the enthusiastic contrast between the ideal and the real that animates the whole of German drama. Indeed Austrian poetry flees from this contrast, in other words from the specific dialectic of life. Sad and transitory reality is magically transformed into something sweet and loveable. Der Rosenkavalier transfigures transitoriness to smiling joy and decadence to gracious joie de vivre.
Claudio Magris
Extract from: Claudio Magris, Der habsburgische Mythos in der modernen österreichischen Literatur. Translated from Italian by Madeleine von Pásztory. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna 2000, p. 269/270.
Richard Strauss
DER ROSENKAVALIER
New production
Conductor Semyon Bychkov · Peter Schneider (23, 26 and 28 August) • Stage director Robert Carsen • Stage and costume design Peter Pabst • Lighting design Robert Carsen Peter van Praet • Chorus master Rupert Huber • Dramaturge Ian Burton
Die Feldmarschallin Fürstin Werdenberg Adrianne Pieczonka • Der Baron Ochs
auf Lerchenau Franz Hawlata • Octavian Angelika Kirchschlager · Sophie Koch (23, 26 and 28 August) • Herr von Faninal Franz Grundheber • Sophie Miah Persson • Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin Ingrid Kaiserfeld • Valzacchi Jeffrey Francis • Annina Elena Batoukova • Ein Polizeikommissär Florian Boesch • Der Haushofmeister der Marschallin John Dickie • Haushofmeister bei Faninal Michael Roider • Ein Notar Peter Loehle • Ein Wirt Markus Petsch • Ein Sänger Piotr Beczala • Eine Modistin Aleksandra Zamoiska • Ein Tierhändler Eberhard F. Lorenz
Concert Association of the Vienna State Opera Chorus
Vienna Philharmonic
Premiere 6 August, 7 p.m.
Further performances 9, 11, 14, 17, 20, 23, 26 and 28 August, 6 p.m.
Grosses Festspielhaus
Telephone +43 (0) 662 8045-500
Telefax +43 (0) 662 8045-555
info@salzburgfestival.at