Background

Time to appreciate Richard Strauss, and his ground-breaking music. He gave us more than a dozen operas, many of which are commonly found onstage in 2024. So, time to dive in, and get this right.

We’ll start the job with Der Rosenkavalier, which shot to the top of the charts in 1911, and has a much-respected run at Santa Fe this summer. Off we go.

New York posted Der Rosenkavalier online a few years ago, and my first-hearing effort revealed an opening where two beautiful women chirp little phrases at each other, using musical notes instead of standard speech, or songs. No melodies, no arias, no chorus. Some sort of bedroom scene, where the pants role mezzo still looks like a pretty woman. Fifteen minutes of this action, and I’m hitting the ‘stop’ button. Life is too short. Where’s my man Donizetti when I need him?

Further, there’s not a great history between me and R Strauss. Arabella was kinky and boring. Salome was kinky and confusing. Ariadne auf Naxos was an interesting concept, but the story line about the dinner party and “The Director” dropped off with no ending, while Ariadne was out there singing, auf Naxos.

But something is in all these operas, that many people like, and they say that Strauss was a very important composer, gifting his remarkable talents to the listening world, so I’m not giving up.

Why, exactly, is Strauss (and particularly Rosenkavalier) this popular? What am I missing?

Someone should survey a hundred opera-lovers, world-wide, and summarize their answers.

I did, and you are about to read the survey results.

The Setup

Santa Fe, August 2024, and I’m here working hard. Daily seminars, side reading, and the pre-show talk by Oliver. I’m learning a lot this week, and here is what I have learned about Rosenkavalier:

1. Strauss felt that the voice and the singing took second place to the role of the orchestra. Strauss was mostly interested in the music he produced, and some people choose to simply listen to the background music and ignore the story and the words. (For Strauss, they’ve secured an extra-large orchestra this month, to do the job.)

2. Listening to some clips pre-curtain, I struggle to find any melody, any phrase, any repetition, or call and response that I recognize as music. But I’ve been told: “Right, it’s not there; he’s doing something else. If you listen for the tunes of Rossini in this, you will not find them.”

3. Closing my eyes and listening to a selection online, I feel a “wall of music” – that is, a setting into which Strauss is placing me. Advisors concur: “You see, he’s providing you with kind of like a ‘kaleidoscope of sound’. It is atmospheric, not melodic. You might sometimes hear musical phrases that will later become themes, but he’s not writing a melody for you. This is a musical innovation of the early 20th century.”  I think I get that; thanks, Ellie.

4. I’m urged to pay attention to the complicated harmonies in this music; “It is dissonant, not simply to be strange and dissonant, but to create a feeling. Listen for ‘interesting’. Don’t listen for melodies. Strauss was an iconoclast.” And I am a traditionalist, when it comes to music. But also a bit of an adventurer, so I wade in.

5. A hallmark of Rosenkavalier is the composer’s use of leitmotifs, little snippets and phrases of music that mean something and represent an emotion or an event or a person. The dramaturg sings some examples, and encourages us to remember them. I forget them immediately, alas.

So I’m heading into this four-hour extravaganza well-armed, expecting no fun, just an educational music experience, yet primed for something new, something enlightening, from the world of opera.

On top of that, I have the support and sympathy of my team of opera-lovers. They want me to succeed; they’ve been helping me for a week. They are more eager than I, to see me progress in my appreciation of Richard S. With this level of encouragement, there’s no going back, and no giving up.

So let’s settle into our little chair at BB-110, and focus.

The Story

No complaints here with the story. I see the Marschallin worrying about how she is already aging into her ‘30’s, and latching on to her beloved young Octavian, while her husband is away. They have quite a thing going here, true love for sure. But it can’t last forever, and that’s the troubling point, and the problem that’s going to have to be solved.

Quality casting, singing, and acting too. Impressive, eye-catching sets. And this time, I don’t even notice the issue of singing little bits and pieces of sentences; guess that’s not my problem tonight.

The Sounds

My problem tonight is what Strauss is making the orchestra do. I’m sitting here listening for music – even if nothing more than beautiful, dissonant, innovative strains, and I am not hearing even that. What I’m hearing is, rather, a mess. Right off from the intro and the first bars of Act 1, this is tough to absorb.

As the action starts, up on the stage, the sounds coming from the pit are unrelated, sounding quite random, cacophonic, unordered. Strauss supporters call these noises “excellent music”, so I am listening very closely, very carefully, but all I can think of is a massive hot-tempered traffic jam. It goes on and on, but to me it doesn’t develop into anything, or reveal a theme or a pattern. But I don’t give up.

What about the sound environment, the overall feeling, the sensation received when I just drop back and take it all in? Not good. I’m not liking this sensation; the overall feeling is troubling, the environment is fractured and confusing. I don’t think this was Strauss’ intention.

As the play goes on, I repeatedly try to listen for a leitmotif, and to sense the communication of an emotion, or some overall musical environment delivered by the orchestra, but I fail. In fact, I’m struggling to hear anything that I would hope to continue into the next minute or two. Don’t misunderstand: I’m no expert. But, for tonight, do I need to be?

The Misfit

My first problem is that it’s depressing to feel that I’m missing the whole point. My second is that it quickly becomes arduous – an intense and draining project – to listen carefully to this for more than a few seconds. I’m sorry, everybody, but it is very hard for me to appreciate the beauty of this kind of “music”, since I can’t hear anything that goes with that word.

Leitmotifs? No, I cannot detect anything so refined or specific in what I am hearing. To me, this could be the sounds from a busy primate enclosure at the zoo, or an infant nursery, untended and out of control. Are the individual instruments in the pit competing somehow? Showing off? Playing their sheet music backwards, perhaps, from bottom to top?

Very soon, I cannot listen to this any longer; it is senseless, and annoying. I’m excluded from something crucial here, something that is a key to Richard Strauss. Further, I’m sorry that the excellent conductor and the players of these many instruments are all working so hard, because there is no positive outcome, and in truth, I would be happier if all the musicians quit right now and went home.

I’m not making progress here, I can tell. It’s a difficult night at the opera.

Life Can Be This Way

Without Strauss’ music in the background, I would be more able to concentrate on the lovely story of the aging Marschallin and her young buck Octavian. Yes, I can see what’s going to happen to them, just as they predict. Octavian is half her age, so he will link up with young Sophie, and they will all sadly agree that this is better.

Setting the orchestra aside, this could be a remarkable stage play. That’s a touching story, a poignant message, and it’s leading up to a pleasant, even beautiful, trio at the end, and a final duet between the young couple.

Crisis

But before that happens, Strauss and his librettist von Hoffmannsthal have something that’s really modern and iconoclastic for us: they literally destroy their own artwork, in front of their audience, with the outrage of Act 3.

Act 3 of Rosenkavalier has nothing to do with the self-reflective Marschallin or the ambivalent Octavian. It’s a grotesque and amateurish show of debauchery and duplicity, carried out with a dressed-down cast jerking around in a cramped ugly room. Now, nobody can focus on the music and the singing, and rising nausea pushes aside the search for a leitmotif. Why? I am not sophisticated enough to love this catastrophe.

When high-schoolers put on such a mess, we give them credit for being creative, but we still want to leave. When Shostakovich does it with The Nose, we can laugh it off as an anachronism, holding our own noses.

But when Richard Strauss allows this crass disruption – at a point where we’ve come to know him as a master of sensitivity and a groundbreaking composer – we know something is wrong with his grasp of storytelling. Strauss screwed up Ariadne auf Naxos with a similar mashup of high art and street junk, and now he does this. Hear me: it’s good, Richard; let’s cut this scene, and enjoy the masterpiece.

Santa Fe has built a cool little “room within the room” onstage, so we have reason to expect the story to flow a lot better than this. What we’re given, instead, is just a strange, uncomfortable interruption. In Act 3, the show is ruined, without any explanation offered.

Not totally ruined: after a truly painful hour of this abomination, the Marschallin reappears, as do Octavian and Sophie, and we are back to their story of the emotional trials of humanity. The final songs, as stated, are elevating and memorable, and I wish they’d been slipped in at the end of Act 2, followed by the bows and the final curtain.

But finally it’s finished, so I stand with the crowd and applaud. Mostly, I want to acknowledge the diligent work by all those singers, musicians, set builders, and staffers, because that looks hard. But I’m kind of fooling them all, because in so many ways, I have missed the show.

Let’s Ask Around

“For the Love of Opera” is a private Facebook group, and the next day, I posted this question there, for public comment.

Help, please. Why is Rosenkavalier popular?

I finally made it through the whole thing last night and for me it was really rough because:

1. The beautiful story of the Marschallin and Octavian was interrupted with the raucous Act 3 humiliation of the Baron, with no benefit.

2. This 20th century music is so hard to grasp that I find it unlistenable and of no use in understanding the story.

3. The singing carries on for three hours, with very little of interest, and no consistency, until the final trio and duet at the end of act three.

Personally, I found this one of the most difficult and frustrating things I’ve ever seen on a stage.

But the crowd went wild, as they all do, and everyone but me thought it was beautiful and delightful.

I’m missing something… what?

Thanks to all. I appreciate your views. - SF

Three days later, 91 members had weighed in, along with dozens of others who responded to those initial comments. Here is what they told me.

Several (19) contributors essentially agreed with me, that Strauss has composed a mix of the straightforward and the difficult, and Rosenkavalier can be a tough go.

Many of these noted that not only the final trio and duet offer music that is easier to grasp, but also the Italian Singer in Act 1, and the Act 2 “Presentation of the Rose” have a more traditional or conventional style, that is readily enjoyable.

• Thanks for that; I will listen for those sections eagerly.

The greatest number (31) simply stated that this is, in fact, excellent music, and Rosenkavalier is enjoyable.

• This does not help me directly; still, I can easily grant that this is not a universally inaccessible composition. You are living at my destination.

Many (22) said the opposite; this is not an opera they like.

• With you on that. Hoping for a miracle.

And some (12) believe that there is a miracle to be had; by listening to this opera several more times, I will catch on.

• You know, I might do that, but first I will settle down and listen to Verdi until I regain my composure.

Twelve true diplomats offered that not everyone has to enjoy Strauss (or any other composer). If it does not speak to you, just skip it and listen to what you like.

• I like this. But I’m still curious, for better or worse.

Several (10) responded with a recommendation that I try a different production, a different conductor, a different soprano or mezzo, or even a live performance (which I just did), or a production without any cuts.

• Alright, sure. That’s not what I am grousing about here, but I’ll always go for variety.

Two opined that this particular opera benefits – or only can succeed – if the listener knows German, more specifically the Austrian dialect of German.

• Mein Gott im Himmel. He’s the most important German composer of the 20th century, but I’m not that committed. I’ll merely keep that in mind. Grüß Gott to you.

Nine others recommended tolerance and further education on this music. The gist of these comments is that Strauss really does write a new (for 1911) and complex type of music, and one can learn about this, to gain more appreciation.

• This notion was introduced to me in the week-long seminar I attended in Santa Fe. It interests me (a bel canto fan) a great deal, and I plan to follow up on these suggestions.

Finally, three commenters agreed that most of Act 3 (until the Marschallin returns for the trio) is unfortunate. (No one wrote a wholehearted defense of Act 3.)

• Indeed. Suppose we find a better way to put the Baron in his place, generate a little comic relief, and accommodate the bedtime schedule of the entire audience.

• I understand that Louvet de Courvrai wrote the 1790 trilogy Les amours du chevalier de Faublas, on which the better parts of Rosenkavalier is based, and that would be a different, and possibly more palatable, opera. (Note: Some opera adaptations of Les Amours already exist, but I have not seen any of them.)

Conclusions

Good news: Something new is on my horizon.  There’s no need to fear getting tired of Haydn and Mozart, von Weber and Offenbach, Bellini and his Italian cohort.  The clear message is that music evolved with Wagner, Strauss, and Puccini, and there are probably ways to befriend these guys and hear their story.

And I’m not lost.  Now I’ve heard suggestions to listen to Strauss’ tone poems, to try others of his operas, and to experiment by listening to extracts – for example, the more accessible parts of Rosenkavalier. I have guidance to attend to interesting harmonic wandering, to be open to a lack of melodic continuity, and to learn more about what went into the development of the opera, and this unfamiliar music.

Step by step, because now I know this is not just another composer, but one who brought major changes to the genre, and probably to music in general.

Something Has Changed

But I’m still a bit puzzled about the evolution of music.  I gather that there was a time when crowds of average people would flock to Verdi’s Rigoletto, and the general public would duke it out in the street, at odds about Rossini’s Matilde de Shabran (really!). Yet a century or two later, what feels like a small subset of the population is eager to take in one of Strauss’ most popular works. I appreciate the advancement and improvement of almost anything, but a trend in the music world has left many of us behind – too bad for me!

Milton Babbitt’s 1958 article, Who Cares if You Listen?, describes and defends the “divergence between contemporary serious music and its listeners, on the one hand, and traditional music and its following, on the other”. I’m thinking that the divergence began in the late 1800’s, when thoughtful composers carried tonal innovation down pathways where I could not easily follow.

That’s natural enough, and Babbitt notes that “the time has passed when the normally well-educated man without special preparation could understand the most advanced work in, for example, mathematics, philosophy, and physics.”  Likewise, in music, and, forewarned that this evolution exists, I can decide whether to study up, or to look elsewhere for entertaining music. The only error would be to stumble into Schoenberg and then complain that he’s not doing the right thing.

What’s Next?

So, did I succeed in appreciating Strauss, and his ground-breaking music? I did. I now appreciate and honor what he has done, without reaching a point where I enjoy it. Maybe that’s in the future, because, as stated, I’ve been given motivation and a good start, with the education and support of my seminar colleagues, and the perspective of the survey participants.

And I’ll wait, open-minded, for someone to justify Act 3 on aesthetic grounds. But for that enlightenment, I won’t be looking very hard.