UK Edition
Review
Der Rosenkavalier review, Glyndebourne: easier on the ears than on the eyes
It’s been four years since I first saw Richard Jones’s production of Der Rosenkavalier and I’d forgotten quite how visually hideous it is. Paul Steinberg’s sets have a headache-inducing quality, with great flat slabs of garishly coloured wallpaper plonked in your face and the salon of Faninal’s palace presented as though designed by Albert Speer for a Nazi bigwig. Nicky Gillibrand’s costumes follow suit by going madly over the top – the Marschallin appears to have looted a Gianni Verasce jumble sale – and the whole show ends up looking like a kid’s version of a New Yorker cartoon.
That note of caricature seems to be what Jones wants to emphasise, however. As revived here by Sarah Fahie (without the opening image of the Marschallin posing nude in a shower of gold), the staging has its moments of wit and farce, notably in the surreal pantomime surrounding the taunting of Ochs, but the predominant mode is one of sophomoric cynicism, poking fun at at the libretto’s psychological subtlety and wry humanity.
Does Jones like the piece, one wonders, and does he even rate it? He certainly seems much more engaged with scribbling subversive jokes on to the margins – the scene-stealing goofiness of Ochs’ mute servant Leopold (Joseph Badar, very amusing in his way), for example, or the choreographed antics of the chorus – than he is in exploring the relationships between the central characters and what they tell us about the fragile nature of erotic love.
Despite the indignities of her ghastly costuming, Rachel Willis-Sørensen sings the Marschallin with great dignity and warmth – here is a lyric soprano with the potential to succeed Renee Fleming in this repertory. Her Octavian, Kate Lindsey, is rather lightweight in tone and her portrayal of a cocky Austrian aristocrat needs more swagger and hauteur: the effect is too young American. Elizabeth Sutphen disappoints as Sophie: the shrillness in her top register suggests she was having an off-night, as was a bumpy Andrej Dunaev as the Italian tenor.
Two elements of the performance are completely successful, however. One is Brindley Sherratt’s Ochs – an effortlessly funny, freshly sung portrayal of a man who thinks he is much more suave and clever than he actually is. The other is Robin Ticciati’s buoyant conducting of the London Philharmonic Orchestra – a richly nuanced, rhythmically alert reading bristling with all the grace notes that the staging signally lacks.
Until June 26, in repertory with Madama Butterfly. Tickets: 01273 8125000; glyndebourne.com