Glyndebourne: The Untold History Page #6

---

First of all there's the Marschallin

who we see right at the beginning

of the opera enjoying a night of

passion with her lover, Octavian.

And she's somebody who is very much

aware of the passing of time

and aware of the fact that Octavian

will at some point become

bored with her and move on,

and indeed, in Richard's production,

there's the sense that she too

might become bored with him.

Octavian himself is a very

interesting role that Strauss has

created. Very much in

a Mozart manner,

he has created it as a trouser role.

It's actually...

The character is a man,

but played by a woman and confusingly

during the course of the opera,

the man, Octavian himself,

dresses up as a woman,

so there's all sorts of confusion and

pandemonium that results from that.

The third character is the rather

sad character of Sophie,

who is just the pawn in Baron Ochs'

plans to marry into money.

And she is the person who almost

inevitably at the end

of the opera falls in love with

Octavian and the two of them finish

the opera together, leaving the

Marschallin back on her own again.

It tends to move chronologically

between the 18th century of

Maria Theresa to the period

when it was written, which is

1910 to 1912 in Vienna.

Well, I had read Zweig's The World

Of Yesterday and the first third

is about people who lived

in Vienna,

actually just before the

Rosenkavalier was written.

You get a very strong idea of all

those men being voracious readers,

voracious consumers

of theatre, all intensely

hothouse plants, particularly

the young Hofmannsthal,

who they all idolised.

There were some films I've found -

pornography - in this period.

And was amazed how playful

and innocent the situations were

in these films.

They were nearly all about class,

always about masters with maids.

And it's written in the age

of burgeoning psychoanalysis.

So, yes, it's a can of worms!

Richard wanted Kate to appear naked,

so there's a Spanx under there

and a bra under there and then,

cos she's put seams in as if it's a

garment rather than just a bodysuit.

Because it's all about the skin tone

and the different textures,

so it's not REAL real,

but it looks it from the stage,

but you're not quite sure

what you're looking at.

The role of the Marschallin

is one of those iconic

roles for the soprano voice.

And, in all honesty,

it took me a long time to say yes

and to decide that it was something

I felt that I could take on.

She's a very bright and confident

and lively woman who just happens

to be in this marriage

that has forced her into this cage,

really.

She is a princess, as well.

In the Austrian way, she has

all sorts of different titles,

she's the field marshal's wife

and she's a princess.

So she's part of the nobility

and she's married of course into

ancestral wealth and estates and she

has a beautiful house and lots of

servants and people come to her with

petitions and all the rest of it.

So she's at the centre of a social

whirl which she is to some extent

being slightly subversive of

in her own lifestyle.

Well, she is the most interesting

character and she does have...

She's a Christian,

but her Christianity

is not beleaguered by guilt.

And she sees sex as part of nature

and she sees it as

a very glorious thing.

Very well aware of her

position in society,

she knows that she cannot

step outside of the boundaries.

I think it's her escape,

you know, having an affair

and we know that it's not just

been him, there's been many before.

There'll probably be more after.

But it's her escape and her way of

expressing herself, being free and

just allowing herself some freedom

in an otherwise very strict society.

Octavian is absolutely obsessed with

her, she's so lush and exciting.

This is a young guy

who is really experiencing life,

he's absolutely obsessed

with the Marschallin.

She's introduced him

to life as a man,

so to speak, life in the bedroom.

And this is overwhelmingly exciting.

The role of Octavian

was always intended to be cross cast,

so sung as a soprano

played by a woman.

That means that from the perspective

of the audience,

what you see is a woman pretending

to be a man,

pretending to be a woman.

So I spend, let's say, at least

80% of my opera time as a boy.

It's almost the inverse

of the scene in Life Of Brian

where you've got the stoning scene

and you've got men pretending to be

women pretending to be men.

But, unlike in Life Of Brian,

where it's always quite clear

that they are men

putting on a falsetto,

in the opera,

it's always clear that it is a woman

because she's singing as a soprano.

Let me tell you, to play

a little boy is so much fun!

You can get so dirty,

it's all really loose in your body,

none of this where ladies have to

sit upright and keep their knees

together and have great posture -

none of that nonsense!

Hofmannsthal certainly

was interested in androgyny.

In, if you like, erotically charged

same-sex relationships.

And that certainly is then present

in Rosenkavalier.

Indeed, one can read

the opening to the first act

as a sort of lesbian love scene.

It's a sort of safe way

of looking at homoeroticism.

It's a slightly titillating

and licentious way of looking at

female homoeroticism I think, yes.

The starting point

is very often our music director

and what they want to do.

This summer, we have a

new music director, Robin Ticciati,

and he has chosen

an opera by Strauss.

I am a continuation.

I am joining a train.

The history of the place is huge

and carries with it an incredibly

deep artistic belief and philosophy

and so I want to join that.

We are in the Organ Room

at Glyndebourne where there have

been many rehearsals with singers

and pianists

to set up an opera,

the beginnings of the opera process.

And...um...

I'm often asked what the conductor

does before the orchestra comes

in an opera process.

For me, these four weeks, five weeks

of just singers, director

and pianist is a way of setting up

the opera and the scene.

I thought we would start

in the middle of Act Two, Baron Ochs.

Baron Ochs has just found Octavian

and Sophie together.

And we're left with this noise

at 133.

Just five bars of orchestra.

And there's a mixture of trombones,

tuba, basset horns,

clarinets and you can hear that all

immediately in the piano

and the whole thing about

setting up a relationship

with the pianist in the room,

it's about creating an energy whereby

the singers can imagine

their character, imagine

the feeling of the pit, but four

weeks before the orchestra arrive.

I mean, even in this third bar,

the tuba appears -

tell me about the tuba.

You spend years preparing the score.

It's a great sound, isn't it?

It's very dark...

And it all melds into...

a strong legato to...

..this extreme chord.

With the timpani.

So you're always thinking

orchestrally. Yes.

The first time we did that,

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes