Evans in a spellbinding performance

Der Rosenkavalier, Wales Millennium Centre

ONE of the most fascinating characters in this hauntingly beautiful production of Richard Strauss’ comic opera doesn’t sing or say a word.

The Old Marschallin, played by retired Welsh National Opera chorus member, Margaret Baiton, sits silently gazing wistfully into the middle distance.

On occasion, she will rise and wander around the stage like as the sands of time run out.

She is the vision of The Marschallin, Princess of Wardenberg, played by soprano Rebecca Evans who contemplates what she will become with anxiety and wistfulness.

Miss Evans, making her debut as The Marschallin, gave a spellbinding performance of this complex, world-wise character, revealing both her emotional strength and vulnerability. She held the audience in silent admiration for the second half of the first act as she contemplated her loveless marriage and warned her lover Octavian that he will one day leave her for someone younger.

Lucia Cervoni was equally enthralling as Octavian, revealing the doubts, confusion and frailty beneath a confident exterior. Brindley Sherratt gave a perfectly-pitched performance as the oafish Baron Ochs, revelling in his absurdities and boorishness, but also strongly suggesting how dangerous men like him really are.

Louise Alder was captivating as sweet and tender Sophie, daughter of the newly-ennobled Herr Von Faninal, played by the excellent Adrian Clarke.

The production, tightly directed by Olivia Fuchs, was given visual depth and atmospheric subtlety by designer, Niki Turner and lighting director, Ian Jones. The lighting gave a dreamlike quality to those scenes where the Old Marschallin played an important role.

This was the second opera in the WNO’s “Vienna Vice” season, the first with new music director Tomas Hanus at the helm.

The WNO orchestra was excellent in Der Fledermaus, but excelled itself in its playing of the profound and affecting music of Der Rosenkavalier.

The musicians certainly realised Mr Hanus’s hoe that the opera should “open a door into that realm of delight and beauty which only music has the power to create.”

Peter Collins