CONSIDERED OPINION OF THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA CONCERT OF 6/7/07

Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier. (Dorothea Röschmann, The Marschallin; Katarina Karnéus, Octavian; Alfred Muff, Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau; Malin Hartelius, Sophie von Faninal; Eike Wilm Schulte, Herr von Faninal; Erica Strauss, Marianne Leitmetzerin; Volker Vogel, Valzacchi; Judith Chrristin, Annina; Franz Welser-Möst, cond.)

Hugh Vickers has recounted an intermission conversation overheard at a 1980 staging of Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. “Do you know who wrote it?” a man asked his companion. The woman wasn’t sure, but thought it might be Mozart. Why was that? asked the man. “Oh, you know,” replied the woman. “Because of the costumes.”

And that might almost have made sense, had the production in question not updated the setting of Der Rosenkavalier to the mid-nineteenth century. One way to avoid confusion about dates is to perform the work semi-staged and in modern dress, as the Cleveland Orchestra does this weekend. Then audience members will have no choice but to consult their program notes for answers.

Yet semi-staged opera has its own perils. In Thursday’s case, the lack of a pit meant that audience members at orchestra level spent much of the evening watching conductor Franz Welser-Möst’s back rather than the action on stage. Moreover, this Rosenkavalier’s Spartan sets and staging proved intermittently puzzling. The Marschallin’s chamber resembled a hall decorated for a wedding reception rather than a bedroom. And if there was ample excuse to modify the flurry of heads that normally appear from wall panels and trap-doors during Act III, there seemed less reason to scrap everything but the music of the same act’s introductory pantomime.

As a rule, Thursday's Rosenkavalier was more satisfying as music than as theater. Welser-Möst led the score with clean, economical efficiency, resisting the temptation to linger excessively even on such passages as Act II’s presentation of the rose. Malin Hartelius, as the maidenly Sophie, was the most successful among the production’s top billed singers at combining solid singing with realistic delineation of character. Katarina Karnéus was initially persuasive in the pants role of Octavian. But when Octavian transformed himself into the chambermaid Mariandel—yes, a woman playing a man playing a woman—Karnéus aimed for drag-queen flamboyance. That might have been fine had her would-be seducer Baron Ochs been a more broadly comic character. As it was, the vocally imposing Alfred Muff left the Baron a fair amount of dignity, and his businesslike lechery didn’t mesh dramatically with Karnéus’ campiness.

And the Marschallin? Well, when the plot of an opera turns on the fact that two characters are separated in age by twenty years, you had better make sure the distinction is reasonably clear. A bit of research reveals that German soprano Dorothea Röschmann is roughly the right age to play the Marschallin. And she has an elegant, lustrous voice. But, for reasons ranging from costuming to characterization, she seemed here like she was in her twenties—and not significantly older than Octavian.

This Rosenkavalier features some strong singing and acutely intelligent conducting. But ultimately it proves less than the sum of its parts. Stage director Sven-Eric Bechtolf tries much too desperately to end on a positive note, with the Marschallin’s boy Mohammed leaping into his mistress’s arms. More cheering for many of us might be the fact that proved Röschmann’s undoing: that forty really is the new thirty.

Jerome Crossley for WCLV 104/9.

Considered Opinions is WCLV's program that reviews performances by Cleveland-area music ensembles. Commentator Jerome Crossley offers an informed and witty perspective on performances by groups that include the Cleveland Orchestra, Opera Cleveland, and Red {an orchestra}. Considered Opinions typically airs at 9.45 a.m., 12.20 p.m., and 5.20 p.m. the Friday following a Cleveland Orchestra concert, and it repeats at 9.45 a.m. on Saturday. Other air-times depend on the schedule of the ensembles reviewed.

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