In Richard Strauss’s opera Der Rosenkavalier, comic situations and the lightness of the waltz intertwine with emotional poignancy, allowing the audience to savour an exquisite story of love and the inevitable passage of time, imbued with irony and melancholy.
This is revealed particularly well in the Marschallin’s message to her beloved Octavian: Time is a remarkable thing. First, we are heedless, it is as nothing! Then suddenly we feel nothing else. It is all around us, our souls are filled with it, our faces show it, the mirror shows it - all my veins feel its throbbing and there, between you and me - it flows in silence, trickling like sands in the hourglass.
The opera premiered in Dresden on 26 January 1911. At the Latvian National Opera, Der Rosenkavalier has been performed only once, in 1930, under the musical direction of Georg Lennart Schnéevoigt, with staging by Ludolfs Liberts.
The new 2026 production is being created by director Viesturs Kairišs, set and costume designer Germans Ermičs and lighting designer Alex Brok Light Design.
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