Der Rosenkavalier

Richard Strauss' most famous opera—a romantic comedy in which the wise, aging Marschallin arranges for the union of her young lover Octavian with the beautiful Sophie, even though the latter is being wooed by the oafish Baron Ochs—is set in mid-18th-century Vienna. But this staging from the 2004 Salzburg Festival, originally taped for broadcast, places the action in the years immediately before World War I, when the piece was actually written. That fact, along with director Robert Carsen's relocation of the third act from the seedy hotel specified in the libretto to a brothel (complete with a drag-queen madam, a few sexually suggestive poses, and some utterly gratuitous nudity), made the production a controversial one. So did the conducting of Semyon Bychkov, who adopted some unusually brisk tempi and (some listeners complained) took an unidiomatic, overly Slavic approach to the material. But the ravishingly romantic score, with its wonderful waltzes, is still played magnificently by the Vienna Philharmonic (to whom Strauss' style is second nature), and while the soloists don't efface memories of their greatest predecessors in the roles, they're all very good and in some cases (Miah Persson's Sophie, for example) outstanding. While there are better versions of the opera available on DVD (Carlos Kleiber's 1994 rendition, also from Vienna, remains a classic), this is certainly an intriguing production, sumptuously mounted, beautifully recorded (with DTS, Dolby Digital 5.1, and LPCM stereo options), and fluidly filmed. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)