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The big news about the latest "Rosenkavalier" was supposed to involve the debut of Vesselina Kasarova, who reneged on an earlier engagement as Rosina but had promised to make amends with Octavian. She cancelled again. On December 2 the ersatz-protagonist was Susanne Mentzer. For all her intelligence and cocky-Cherubino charm, she seemed miscast, her mezzo-soprano a shade too light and a size too small. Attention thus shifted to the Marschallin of Cheryl Studer, returning to the house after a long absence and much-publicised spate of vocal problems. Although she mustered some telling histrionic details and pretty sounds at mid-range, she encountered pitch problems in ascending passages and seemed self-consciously girlish when one most wanted a sense of dignified repose.

With Elizabeth Norberg-Schulz as a shrill mini-Sophie and Alan Opie as a standard-brand Faninal, the performance was elegantly, even eloquently dominated by the British bass Peter Rose, undertaking his first and only Ochs here (the role was otherwise monopolised by Eric Halfvarson). Rose ignored all the awful buffo traditions and played the country baron as a man of authoritative bluster and affecting bonhomie. He really sang the score, from easy top to resonant bottom, without Sprechstimme distortions, and even mustered a good semblance of Viennese dialect. It was a promising achievement, hardly blemished by a disastrous faux-bald wig in the last act. Marcelo Alvarez brought melting lyricism to the aria of the Italian tenor. Jiri Kout conducted frenetically.

The ultra-conventional production was originally staged 31 years ago by Nathaniel Merrill. Robert O'Hearn's intentionally vulgar design for the nouveau-riche Faninal's foyer still draws gasps of approval and rude applause when the curtain rises on Act Two.

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Search by title: Der Rosenkavalier,

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