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DER ROSENKAVALIER in Hamburg, Germany

Elbphilharmonie, 8 p.m.

Performed by members of Berliner Philharmoniker under the baton of Raphael Haeger.

In terms of multimedia versions of popular operas, the Rosenkavalier film was among the first to appear. Although relying to a great extent on the audience’s familiarity with the opera itself, the film functions well as a self-contained comedy.   

Analogous to the opera’s three acts, the film’s narrative consists of three main units. These are interspersed with war scenes portraying the world as lived in by the Marshall (though the latter does not actually appear in the opera). In the film, his character takes on an active role, resolving the amorous twists and turns at the end of the film which, in the opera, are left unresolved.   

When the opera was adapted as an instrumental version by Richard Strauss and his collaborators, the vocal parts were taken out and partially replaced by individual instruments. The opera was shortened, in some places the course of events was changed and new narrative elements were added. 

The music employed to accompany the portrayal of the Marshall’s world was taken from Richard Strauss’ extensive oeuvre. Several marches and dances from Strauss’ repertoire were selected for the film and new ones were also composed. 

In Wiene’s film, which some consider to be too conventional, the cinematic imagery is just one element within the overall concept. The other is the music, whose interaction with the film is lending it a formidable narrative power. 

In the Rosenkavalier film, the typical approach to film music composition, whereby the music is written subsequent to the film and functionally adapted to it, is turned on its head: The film’s central element is the music played by the orchestra as opposed to the libretto. The music is served by the film along with its new episodes and is also consistently referred to by the choreography of the actors. This is not surprising since the film was shot after the music.

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