Time is a strange thing, it doesn’t change things.
Premiere 29 th November 2019, Janáček Theatre.
Author: Richard Strauss
Libretto: Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Musical Preparation: Robert Kružík
Conductor: Robert Kružík, Ondrej Olos
Director: Jiří Heřman
Set Design: Tomáš Rusín
Costume Design: Zuzana Štefunková-Rusínová
Chorus Master: Klára Složilová Roztočilová
Dramaturgy: Patricie Částková
Assistant Stage Director: Blaha Otakar
Performed in the original German with Czech and English surtitles
Time is a strange thing, it doesn’t change things.
Probably no one expected after such dramatic and - for his period - controversial works as Elektra and Salome that Richard Strauss would produce a comic opera interlaced with the rhythms of Viennese waltz. The libretto by Strauss court collaborator Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who was freely inspired by the works of the gentlemen Louvet de Couvrai and Molière, features an amusing plot about an elderly Baron named Ochs who wants to marry a young, rich girl; his plans are foiled by the fact that his chosen Sophie falls in love with a certain Octavian after he gives her a ceremonial silver rose in the Baron´s name. Its classification as a comic opera may be misleading, however: the intertwining of the layers of Viennese society in the middle of the 18th century is a source of many humorous situations but the work also features aspects which are less funny and more concerned with the human condition. These mainly arise in connection with the character of the ageing marshal – the desire to be young and the fear of growing old, infidelity, and selflessness in love.
