Product: Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier [VHS] (1994)
Rating: 5.0
The Best DVD of this Masterpiece
You'd probably have to call me a Rosenkavalier groupie. I've loved the opera since I first encountered it on a Met broadcast in high school back in the 1950s. My first recording was the hallowed Karajan/Schwarzkopf/Ludwig from 1956. I've owned possibly ten different versions on LP and CD, including the abridged 1933 version with Lehmann/Schumann/Olszewska. I've read the score repeatedly at the piano and even served as a sub-repetiteur for a local production. I've owned the VHS version of this performance since shortly after it came out, kindly sent me by a friend in Berlin. So, when I converted to DVD there was no problem deciding which version to get. It had to be this one. It has everything.Consider this. The conductor is one of the giants of today, Carlos Kleiber. I already knew, from the earlier Munich CD, that he had this opera completely in his bloodstream, and here he's conducting the Vienna Opera Orchestra who do, too, of course. And I wasn't surprised when the VHS of this performance lived up to that standard. The three sopranos who are so important to the opera are, get this: Felicity Lott, Sophie von Otter, and Barbara Bonney. Now where could you get a better cast that that today? Not only do they sing like angels - the Marschallin's monolog and the ensuing duet with Octavian alone are precious beyond words - but they look the part, too. The 'Presentation of the Rose' scene is beyond praise. Add in the cavernous bass and sly acting of Kurt Moll as Baron Ochs and you get a sure-fire combination. Heck, I even liked Mohammed, a mute part!But the clincher for my getting this version on DVD was that I would be able to have English subtitles. I'm modestly fluent in German (I've even been told I have a Viennese accent when I speak German; it must be all the time I've spent with 'Rosenkavalier') but one doesn't always catch the sung words in this most elegantly sly of libretti, so one can have subtitles in English, as well as German, French or Chinese.In other words, this is the pick of the crop. I love other audio-only versions, but the combination of artists (not to speak of the sumptuous mise-en-scène in this production) makes this the best audiovisual representation of this masterpiece.Review by Scott Morrison