(Photos: Vincent Pontet)

From May 21 to June 5, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées presents “Der Rosenkavalier” in a production by the famous and highly controversial director Krzysztof Warlikowski. Even though the French music lovers, and especially the Parisians, are delighted to see this masterpiece of an opera from the beginning of the twentieth century back in the capital – something that hasn’t happened for over 15 years – they might be, to say the least, taken aback by the staging. Krzysztof Warlikowski declared on the radio program “Les midis de la culture” on France Culture that he had “rebelled” against this opera. True, but nevertheless…

First, readers should be warned that in the eyes of the writer of this review, the director has (to say the least) misunderstood the theme of queerness in this opera. While queerness is indeed an underlying theme, he puts it where it isn’t and doesn’t see it where it is. For example, during the overture, he uses a video to underline a lesbian relationship between the Marschallin and Octavian, on the pretext that Octavian is a transvestite role, even though the character is explicitly a seventeen-year-old teenager. On the other hand, there is a gay character, namely Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau (the Marschallin’s cousin), who is always tempted to seduce Octavian when he appears to him as a soubrette or as an inn maid. But the director is silent on this point. He prefers to distract attention with the effeminate gestures of the valets surrounding the central characters. It’s as if they can’t make the slightest gesture or step without overdoing it.

Furthermore, the costumes in this production, designed by costume and set designer Małgorzata Szczęśniak, except for the Marschallin’s in the final act, are reminiscent in their heterogeneity as if from the flea market of those from the worst music videos of the disco years. The spectator expects a protagonist to sing “I am coming out” at any moment. They have the glittering colors, like Octavian’s golden orange pants and purple boots, the valets’ sequined pants or the Marschallin’s white wig in the first act. Małgorzata Szczęśniak also imagined the set design for this production, with a clean red background, in the first act, a green latex curtain in the third, not simply to shock but to displease. Style, elegance and refinement are lacking here, in contrast to the fine, elegant, Mozartian music of Richard Strauss.

One should note that the use of videos, conceived by Kamil Polak, is at best superfluous, like the one in the third act, at worst beside the point, like the one in the first act, and at worst distracting, like the film in the second act. The first may be very Bergmann, the film “Rosenkavalier” from the twenties, and the last both Hitchcock and Antonioni, but it doesn’t matter. There’s even a synchronicity problem in the third act. The Maréchale is still on stage, while the film shows her returning home.

It should be added that Octavian’s character is poorly conceived from the very first act, making the plot uninteresting. First, she’s a mezzo, not a soprano. The enchantment of the three shades of tessitura intertwining during the final trio is therefore already compromised. The same applies to the final duet between Octavian and Sophie. What’s more, the mezzo tessitura takes away from the character’s maturation from the outset, even though it is one of the driving forces of the work. Secondly, Octavian never seems to fall in love, either with the Marschallin in Act one, despite having spent a night in love, or with Sophie in Act two, for whom he nevertheless compromises Ochs and with whom he is supposed to have fallen in love at first sight in the libretto. Finally, he seems more carried away by events than to provoke them, even though it is he who conceives the plot of the last act.

The first act is, in fact, rather tedious. Beginning with Octavian smoking away from the Marschallin, and the Marschallin singing in the same color throughout the act, no tenderness emanating from either of them, and no emotion from the Marschallin, who expresses her obsession with the passage of time in the aria “Die Zeit im Grunde, Quinquin, die Zeit, die ändert doch nichts an den Sachen,” and with tertiary roles straining for laughs – Krešimir Špicere‘s journalist Valzacchi singing so fast he loses comprehension, and tenor Francesco Demuro‘s Italian singer, singing with as much stage presence as voice – it would have taken a less banal Monsieur Faninal to raise the level. But Monsieur Faninal is a banal person, and French baritone Jean-Sébastien Bou shows this in his mediocrity.

The Irish mezzo Niamh O’Sullivan as Octavian, with her clear, frank, if somewhat deep timbre, portrayed a teenager closer to eighteen than to ten. She would have been much better in a role that allowed her greater vocal range.

Swiss soprano Regula Mühlemann‘s Sophie, although ill on May 24, sounded refreshed with her clear timbre, firm without being heavy-handed, simple and true. She gave the rose scene its ingenuity without silliness. It was a pity that her acting was so childish, bordering on infantilism, instead of showing her straightforwardness and intelligence. Although the libretto makes her grow up like Octavian, she seems stuck in her pre-adolescence with her dress, her Mickey T-shirt and her stooped posture.

One of the evening’s pleasant surprises nonetheless was bass Peter Rose‘s Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau, who played his Viennese accent with natural ease, making his character humorous and lively, almost endearing even when his low notes were the only flaws in his sprechgesang, which came out as if on the boulevard.

Fortunately, grace seems to arrive at the end of the last act, as if it had taken the main performers the whole opera to shake off this staging that attacks the work from all sides. French soprano Véronique Gens’ Marschallin recovered to lend her tenderness to the final trio, and the voices of Octavian and Sophie intertwined in a harmonic and melodic fluidity that was ravishing. The Irish mezzo did her best to adapt her voice to the tessitura of her colleagues. And the duet between Sophie and Octavian did justice to the work, although the balance intended by Richard Strauss was not there.

Finally, the orchestra was undoubtedly the most Straussian aspect of this production. Respecting the composer’s harmony, using all the orchestra’s resources in illustrating scenes such as the drip-drip-drip when she describes her fear of time to Octavian, or the rose scene, when it seems to stop time, it shows the Mozartian genius stretched to the composer’s Wagnerian time. Less strident violins, especially at the end of the first act, would not have been out of place. Nonetheless, he manages to finish the opera well in its mischievousness.

This production, like “Don Carlos” at the Bastille, with its bloated staging and multiple techniques, does not manage to damage the charm of the work. One must go and see, above all, to listen to the joy of this music, knowing that it took more than ten years before it arrived. When’s the next one?