Tag: DER ROSENKAVALIER

Hertha Töpper as Octavian

Above: Hertha Töpper as Octavian in DER ROSENKAVALIER

[Update: Hertha Töpper passed away on March 28th, 2020, at the age of 95]

I’ll never forget listening to Strauss’s DER ROSENKAVALIER for the first time: it was a Saturday matinee broadcast from the Old Met at Christmastime in 1962. I was 14 years old and had been in love with opera for three years.

At that time, the German operas were not easy for me; I had made it thru my first broadcast RING Cycle in 1961 and I seem to recall having been more thrilled by the story than by the music. ROSENKAVALIER, with its long conversational stretches, posed a challenge all its own. But the singing of the three female leads in the opera’s final scene moved me deeply, and when the broadcast ended I sat down and wrote fan letters to all three of them: Hertha Töpper (Octavian), Anneliese Rothenberger (Sophie), and Régine Crespin (the Marschallin). Within days I received replies from all three.

Metropolitan Opera House December 22, 1962 Matinee/Broadcast
DER ROSENKAVALIER Octavian.....................Hertha Töpper Princess von Werdenberg......Régine Crespin Baron Ochs...................Otto Edelmann Sophie.......................Anneliese Rothenberger Faninal......................Ralph Herbert Annina.......................Rosalind Elias Valzacchi....................Paul Franke Italian Singer...............Sándor Kónya Marianne.....................Thelma Votipka Mahomet......................Marsha Warren Princess' Major-domo.........Robert Nagy Orphan.......................Loretta Di Franco Orphan.......................Nadyne Brewer Orphan.......................Dina De Salvo Milliner.....................Lilias Sims Animal Vendor................Frank D'Elia Hairdresser..................Harry Jones Notary.......................Gerhard Pechner Leopold......................Erbert Aldridge Lackey.......................Joseph Folmer Lackey.......................John Trehy Lackey.......................Lou Marcella Lackey.......................Edward Ghazal Faninal's Major-domo.........Andrea Velis Innkeeper....................Charles Anthony Police Commissioner..........Norman Scott
Conductor....................Lorin Maazel

Ms. Töpper sent me the gorgeous photo which appears at the top of this article. Ever since then, this has remained the quintessential image of Octavian for me. As it turned out, Octavian was Töpper’s only Met role, though she had an enormous career in Europe.

Here’s a sampling of the Töpper Octavian, with Erika Köth as Sophie:

Hertha Töpper & Erika Köth – Presentation of the Silver Rose ~ ROSENKAVALIER

Hertha Töpper was born in 1924 and made her operatic debut at Graz as Ulrica in BALLO IN MASCHERA in 1945. By 1951 she was singing at Bayreuth, and had debuted at Munich as Octavian. She went on to sing at all the major opera houses and festivals of Europe; among her most prominent roles were Brangäne, Carmen, Fricka, and Dorabella. She also was a well-loved recitalist and concert singer, specializing in the music of Bach.

A couple of years ago, by chance, I plucked Töpper’s recording of Bartok’s BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE (in German) from the library shelf; it proved to be a revelation, with fantastic singing from both the mezzo and the great Dietrich Fisher-Dieskau, and truly atmospheric conducting by Ferenc Fricsay.

~ Oberon

March 30, 2020
A Memorable ROSENKAVALIER

[Reviving this article, which has been updated with some audio clips]

In 1983, the Metropolitan Opera took DER ROSENKAVALIER on their annual Spring tour. James Levine was the conductor and the stellar cast was led by Elisabeth Söderström (above) as the Marschallin, Frederica von Stade as Octavian, Kathleen Battle as Sophie, and Aage Haugland as Baron Ochs. Interestingly, this particular alignment of stars never performed the Strauss opera at The Met. It was given in six cities on the tour, culminating with this performance…

…in Boston, which I was lucky enough to attend. Unfortunately one of my most vivid memories of the evening was the presence of some people sitting about six rows behind me who talked throughout the performance. Even though I had sprung for an orchestra seat – the better to concentrate on the array of vocal talent onstage – these people served notice that sitting in expensive seats doesn’t make you classy. They were continuously being shushed by people around them (as annoying as their talking, actually) and the usher came to admonish them at one point. Apparently they had some sort of clout that kept them from being ejected; at any rate, they spoiled a great performance. I’m sure they are all dead now, and good riddance.

Despite this major distraction, the performance was extremely moving and superbly sung. Maestro Levine, whose 1976 ROSENKAVALIER broadcast had seemed sluggish and thick-textured orchestrally, was now fully in his element with the Strauss score. The towering Aage Haugland – a great favorite of mine during his Met career – was a grand Baron Ochs, and Miss Battle was a shimmering-voiced Sophie.

It was the vocal and theatrical chemistry between Elisabeth Söderström and Frederica von Stade that gave this ROSENKAVALIER its unique appeal. Their older women/younger man romance was brilliantly portrayed, while their distinctive vocal timbres served their respective characters to perfection. By this point in time, the Söderström voice was an expressive rather than opulent instrument, but she truly knew her way around this music and her singing was so meshed with the character’s moods – it was simply all of a piece. In the monolog, she poked fun at herself as “die alte frau, die alte Marschallin“, sung with a crackly old-lady sound. Telling Octavian that he will soon tire of their romance, she seized von Stade by the shoulders, trying to shake some sense into him. The Söderström Marschallin was an unforgettable mixture of dignity, bitterness, and nostalgia: a woman who watches something cherishable slipping thru her fingers and finds the courage to let it go.

Frederica von Stade, with her immaculately tailored sound, was boyish and impetuous in behavior. and her vocalism was always elegant and wonderfully personal. Other Octavians – Ludwig (my first!), Baltsa, Troyanos – have sung this music in grander style but no other Octavian of my experience has quite captured the coltish confusion of a boy on the brink of manhood who has a loving heart and a tender, noble young spirit…which von Stade showed us so memorably.

While the Söderström/Battle/von Stade collaboration was never heard in a complete public performance of ROSENKAVALIER here in New York City, the three women did perform the opera’s Act III trio at the Met’s 100th anniversary gala. The day-long celebration was telecast live; I attended the matinee portion and can attest to the palpable atmosphere in the house as the three women sang this magical Strauss creation. You can listen to them here, with Levine on the podium.

For years, I assumed this film clip was the only extant souvenir of this unforgettable convergence of voices – though I am sure someone recorded it someplace along the tour’s path – but recently my friend Ben Weaver surprised me with recordings of the first and third acts in very good sound from a rehearsal at the Met just before the tour commenced. Someone there had the presence of mind to realize that this was a rarity in the making and that Ms. Söderström’s Marschallin was a jewel worth preserving; and so this valuable sound document has come down to me, some thirty years after the event.

Elisabeth Söderström – monolog from ROSENKAVALIER~Act I – Levine cond – Met stage rehearsal 1983

Frederica von Stade (above) regrettably never sang a complete Octavian at The Met – though she did sing a gorgeous Rose Presentation duet with Judith Blegen on the same gala programme as the filmed clip above.

In 1987, Elisabeth Söderström made her ‘first’ Met farewell singing the Marschallin on a Saturday matinee which was broadcast. That was a very moving experience, yet it has always been the Boston performance that’s stayed so clearly in my mind. The magic of the Söderström Marschallin is so perfectly distilled in the closing moments of Act I, where her ‘silberne rosen‘ takes on a ghostly patina of lyrical regret and resignation.

Elisabeth Söderström – Die silberne rose – 1st Met farewell 2~21~87

~ Oberon

November 29, 2019
The Young Troyanos

Tatiana Troyanos made her Met debut as Octavian in DER ROSENKAVALIER in 1977. But I had had the incredible opportunity to see her on the Met stage ten years earlier, when she sang Baba the Turk in a remarkable performance of Stravinsky’s THE RAKE’S PROGRESS given by the visiting Hamburg State Opera for the Lincoln Center Festival in 1967. I was 19 years old and obsessed with opera.

A few days after the performance, I sent Tatiana Troyanos a fan letter in care of the Hamburg State Opera. Soon after, an envelope arrived in our family mailbox in Hannibal, New York:

This was in the pre-zip code era; there was no return address, but the German postage stamp (with no cancellation) provided a clue. Inside was the signed photo from Troyanos that appears at the top of this article. Scanning these beautiful souvenirs was genuinely moving to me: these were things Tatiana held in her hands, and undoubtedly she signed, sealed, and delivered this to the post office herself. (So cute that she ran out of space when signing her name!)

Troyanos had sung in the chorus of nuns in THE SOUND OF MUSIC on Broadway before spending two seasons with New York City Opera. Then, in 1965, she traveled to Europe, auditioned successfully for three companies, and chose to join the Hamburg State Opera, where she remained (first as an ensemble member, later as a guest artist) for ten years, singing a variety of roles and honing her stagecraft.

Then came the debut at The Met, where she was to become a beloved star, giving over 275 performances there and making an indelible mark on such roles as Octavian, the Composer in ARIADNE AUF NAXOS, Mozart’s Tito, Princess Eboli, and Wagner’s Venus and Kundry. I saw Troyanos many times, in these roles and others, and she always thrilled me as few other singers consistently did. Yet whenever her name comes up, it’s that first experience of her Baba that immediately springs to mind.

Tatiana Troyanos passed away after a long battle with cancer. She continued to sing to the end of her life, including – reportedly – for fellow patients at Lenox Hill Hospital on the day she died: August 21, 1993.

Here, from her Hamburg years, is Troyanos singing the Composer’s great aria in praise of music from a 1968 performance:

Tatiana Troyanos – ARIADNE AUF NAXOS ~ finale of the Prologue – Hamburg 1968

~ Oberon

August 25, 2019
Silberne Rose

Regine Crespin in the closing moments of Act I of DER ROSENKAVALIER.

Regine Crespin as The Marschallin ~ end of Act I – Buenos Aires 1961

May 18, 2016