Strauss, R.: Der Rosenkavalier

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Cat No: 8110191-92

Release Date: 08 January 2002

Label: Naxos - Historical / Naxos Historical

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 2

Barcode: 636943119129

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: STRAUSS, R.

Description
Richard STRAUSS (1864-1949)Der Rosenkavalier (abridged version) ‘Die Zeit, die ist ein sonderbar Ding’ ‘Time – is such a curious thing’The Marschallin, Act 1 of Der RosenkavalierTime - a curious thing indeed; for it seems that as the origins of this celebrated recording recede further into the past, the more it reveals of the early performing style of this ‘greatest high comedy in all opera’. Even though the sessions took place 22 years after Der Rosenkavalier’s first performance, it must be remembered that three of the recording’s principals, Lehmann, Schumann and Mayr, all sang in productions within twelve weeks of the Dresden première, the two sopranos in Hamburg and the bass in Vienna. Indeed, it was in Hamburg that the intriguing single performance took place in which Lehmann sang Sophie and Schumann sang Octavian. (In those early days Sophie and, slightly later, Octavian were Lehmann’s rôles and she undertook the Marschallin for the first time only in 1924, at Covent Garden.) Olszewska’s experience of the opera was not as extensive as that of her colleagues but, by 1933, she was already greatly admired for her interpretation of Octavian. How fortunate that the greatest Marschallin of her day, perhaps the finest ever, the most enchanting Sophie, such a gallant Octavian and an unsurpassed Ochs were all able to participate in the recording. Abridged? Yes, but the principal scenes are here largely intact, so much of the atmosphere of the opera’s early productions is re-created on this historic set. Der Rosenkavalier was fortunate in its early recordings. Shortly after the première the three leading ladies made several discs, and over the years many fine singers set down their interpretations of choice excerpts; several are included on CD2, including Tauber (remarkably sweet-toned); Barbara Kemp (both in the studio and ‘live’ at the Theater Unter der Linden, Berlin, where she sang for twenty seasons); Delia Reinhardt (the customary Octavian at Covent Garden with Lehmann and Schumann), Conchita Supervia (the Octavian of the Rome première in 1911); and Alexander Kipnis, somewhat strait-laced, but a bass of tremendous authority, whose Ochs was later much praised at the Met. Such important fragments paved the way for this 1933 set, but it was to be another seventeen years before the first complete studio recording of Der Rosenkavalier was made. Since then many further versions of the opera have been released but none has earned the affectionate admiration accorded to this one, often referred to in short as ‘Lehmann’s Rosenkavalier’. That abbreviation is misleading, of course. Other performances with Lehmann survive, notably a 1939 live recording from the Met (Naxos 8.110034-36). The Marschallin is really not the main rôle; she does not feature at all in the second act, re-appearing only halfway through the third, and the opera&
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