Richard Strauss

Der Rosenkavalier

Mar 24 – Apr 10

Tickets from $33.00 |

Price includes $10.00 fee

Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin takes the helm of Strauss’s most beloved score, following his acclaimed Met performances of the composer’s Elektra, Die Frau ohne Schatten, and Salome. After her “resplendent” (Observer) 2025 portrayal of Strauss’s Arabella, soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen stars as the elegant Marschallin, alongside brilliant mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo as her impetuous younger lover, Octavian. Soprano Ying Fang is the lovely heiress who steals his heart, and bass Günther Groissböck reprises his uproarious portrayal of the bumptious Baron Ochs in Robert Carsen’s turn-of-the-century setting.

A co-production of the Metropolitan Opera; The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, London; Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires; and Teatro Regio di Torino

Production a gift of Howard Solomon and Sarah Billinghurst Solomon

This revival is part of the Met’s new In the Classic Style Fund with special thanks to C. Graham Berwind, III and the donors who have supported this initiative

Sung In

German

Met Titles In

  • English
  • German
  • Spanish

Estimated Run Time

4 hrs 20 mins

House Opens

Act I

75 mins

Intermission

35 mins

Act II

60 mins

Intermission

30 mins

Acts III

60 mins

Opera Ends

World premiere: Court Opera, Dresden, 1911. Set in an idealized Vienna of the past, Strauss’s most popular opera concerns a wise woman of the world who is involved with a much younger lover but ultimately forced to accept the laws of time, giving him up to a pretty young heiress. Hofmannsthal’s fascinating libretto deftly combines comedy, dreamy nostalgic fantasy, genuine human drama, and light but striking touches of philosophy and social commentary. Strauss’s magnificent score, likewise, works on several levels, combining the refinement of Mozart with the epic grandeur of Wagner.

Creators

Richard Strauss (1864–1949) composed an impressive body of orchestral works and songs before devoting the second half of his long and productive career to the stage. His 1909 opera Elektra marked his first collaboration with Viennese author and poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929), who would go on to write five other libretti for Strauss over the following 20 years, in one of the most remarkable partnerships in theater history.

  • composer

    Richard Strauss

Production

Robert Carsen

SET DESIGNER

Paul Steinberg

COSTUME DESIGNER

Brigitte Reiffenstuel

LIGHTING DESIGNERs

Robert Carsen and Peter Van Praet

CHOREOGRAPHER

Philippe Giraudeau

C. Graham Berwind, III Chorus Director

Tilman Michael

Setting

The opera is originally set in Vienna in the 1740s. Genuine historical references are merged with fictitious inventions (like the “noble custom” of the presentation of the silver rose to a fiancée, which never actually existed) and anachronisms (like the Viennese Waltz, which did not yet exist at that time). It’s a mixture that creates a seductive mythical landscape, a ceremonious and impossibly beautiful Vienna-that-never-was. The Met’s current production moves the setting to the last years of the Habsburg Empire.

Music

The score of Der Rosenkavalier is lush, rich, and romantic to an extraordinary degree—perhaps surprisingly so, considering that the composer had written the disturbingly edgy and modern Elektra only two years earlier. The presentation of the rose, with its soaring vocal lines sprinkled with chromatic figures reflecting the shimmering of the silver rose (a motif that reappears with renewed poignancy at the very end) is ravishingly beautiful. And waltzes appear frequently, sometimes bumptious, sometimes elegant.

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