‘Der Rosenkavalier’ encores on Sunday
RENEE FLEMING and Elina Garanca perform in the Met’s new production of Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. There will be an encore of the opera this Sunday, May 21, starting at 11:30 a.m., in the Palace Cineplex. This is on the heels of a live in HD transmission last Saturday at Carib 5.
The live transmission marked the final performances of both Fleming and Garanca in their signature roles. Conducted by Sebastian Weigle and directed by Robert Carsen, the cast also includes Markus Bruck as Faninal and Matthew Polenzani as the Italian singer.
Act I is set in Vienna in 1911. The Marschallin, Princess Marie-Therese von Werdenberg, has spent the night with her young lover, Octavian, Count Rofrano. As they are sharing
breakfast, they hear voices in the anteroom, and Octavian quickly hides. The unexpected visitor turns out not to be MarieTherese’s husband, the Feldmarschall, but her country cousin, Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau.
After bragging about his latest amorous adventures, Ochs turns to the subject of his upcoming marriage to Sophie, the young daughter of the recently ennobled and extremely wealthy arms dealer, Herr von Faninal. Ochs has come to ask the Marschallin’s advice as to which young aristocrat should be chosen to present his fiancée with the traditional silver engagement rose.
On a playful whim, the Marschallin suggests Octavian, who suddenly emerges from his hiding place disguised as a chambermaid and is called ‘Mariandel’.
Ochs instantly starts making advances towards her, but she escapes from him as the room fills with the daily crowd of petitioners for the Marschallin’s morning levee. Among them is a pair of Italian intriguers, Annina and Valzacchi, whom Ochs hires to track down the pretty servant girl.
The May 13 matinee performance was transmitted worldwide as part of the Met’s Live in HD series, which now reaches more than 2,000 cinemas in 71 countries around the world, including the Carib 5 in Jamaica.