A great live celebration

The final telecast of this year’s Met HD Live season at Perth Playhouse on Saturday was a sumptuous performance of Richard Strauss’ opulent Der Rosenkavalier.

A five-hour celebration of singing, but also regret, it marked the retrial from these roles of Renée Fleming and Elina Garanca as the Marschallin and Octavian – signature rôles for both.

As Renée Fleming said in her interval interview, going out at the top is the way to do it and both vocally and as an actress there could have been no better.

Her long soliloquy in Act One was compelling in beauty of tone and insight. In the same way Elina Garanca was peerless as Octavian, in voice and acting.

The third member of the love triangle was Erin Morley as Sophie, the stratospheric high soprano line appearing effortless and making rather more of her character than usual.

Günther Groissböck was a great Baron Ochs. A huge stage presence and a magnificent voice, though severely put upon by Robert Carsen’s fanatically detailed production, including what looked like a Donald Trump wig inconveniently falling off in the last act!

In only two points did I find myself disagreeing with this performance, both concerning Producer Interference.

Strauss and his librettist set the work in 1790s Vienna. Robert Carsen updated it to 1913 Vienna.

An unjustifiable imposition on a mostly detailed, well-thought-out production.

Looking eagerly forward, the next season starts with Bellini’s Norma on Saturday, October 7, in a new production, with a star studded cast. IAN STUART-HUNTER