Review by Robert Barry
Stars Elizabeth Scwarzkopf, Otto Edelmann, Sena Jurinac, Anneliese Rothenberger,
Erich Kunz, Judith Hellwig, Alois Pernerdtorfer, Erisch Majkut| Written by Hugo von Hoffmansthal
UK certification E | UK RRP £19.99 | Blu-ray Region B | Runtime 192 minutes | Directed by Paul Czinner
The filmed opera is forever caught in a certain interstitial space, somehow deficient yet simultaneously too much. According to the cinematic aesthetics of D.W. Griffiths - a director with a tendency to march onto the set singing Wagner's Tannhauser - and elaborated by Sergei Eisenstein, the cinema is, to paraphrase Clausewitz, opera by other means.
The close-up came to substitute for the voice of the singer as the locus of narrative truth. So when an opera is staged and filmed, the truth becomes overdetermined through both face and voice, and somehow loses its power to convince in the process. One of the strengths, then, of Paul Czinner's take on Der Rosenkavalier is that the frame so often gives the singers a little space to breathe, letting the voice do the work. A task all concerned accomplish admirably.
Strauss's comic opera, with a libretto by Hugo von Hoffmansthal, loosely based on Moliere's Monsieur de Ponceaugnac, premiered in Dresden in 1911 but was not committed to celluloid for another half century (although a silent version, directed by The Cabinet of Dr Caligari's Robert Weine, was produced in 1925). The story concerns the “very young” lover of the ageing princess von Werdenberg who, called upon to deliver a silver rose to the bride-to-be of the princess's cousin, the ogreish Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau, instead falls in love with the young girl.
Der Rosenkavalier is a bedroom farce of the highest order, a bel canto panto or, if you will, a sort of Carry On Singing. Minus the singing, one could imagine the role of the Princess being taken by Groucho's old foil, Margaret Dumont, and in many ways the narrative follows a course not unlike a Marx Brothers film – only without the Marx Brothers. And here perhaps is the problem. For though Czinner's production, with its gorgeous sets and lavish costumes, the imperious Elizabeth Schwarzkopf delivering every high c with an almost divine sweetness, conveys admirably why Der Rosenkavalier has been warmly embraced as a classic and since become a firm favourite in the operatic repertoire.
It nonetheless fails ultimately to be truly comic, with most of the gags left to be delivered more by the orchestra, a slick well-oiled machine under Herbert von Karajan's masterful baton, than by the cast and camera. For already confirmed fans of the opera, this should be an essential part of their collection and may well be accepted as definitive, but it is unlikely to convert the sceptical.
EXTRAS ★★★ Trailer, Photo Gallery, Before / After Restoration comparison.