Adrianne Pieczonka
Angelika Kirchschlager
Franz Hawlata
Franz Grundheber
Miah Persson

Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor
Wiener Philharmoniker
Semyon Bychkov, conductor

Robert Carsen, stage director

Recorded during the 2004 Salzburger Festspiele

Picture format: NTSC 16:9
Sound format: LPCM Stereo / Dolby Digital 5.1 / DTS 5.1
Region code: All Region
Subtitles: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish
Booklet notes: English, French, German
Running time: 201 mins
No. of DVDs: 2


This recent production of Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier represents one of the most talked about productions of recent Salzburg festival years and now appears on TDK DVD courtesy of Austrian Television and the experienced direction of Brian Large.

Director Robert Carsen has transferred the action to the time at which the opera was written, to the final years of the Habsburg monarchy, shortly before the outbreak of the First World War.

Canadian soprano Adrianne Pieczonka plays Marschallin: "unsentimental and smart, and when her vulnerabilities break through as she reflects on her situation, they are all the more touching" (Los Angeles Times).

The other characters are unambiguous members of a society that lives life to the full, unaware that their end is nigh. Baron Ochs - German bass Franz Hawlata – is a philanderer in his uniform and monocle, his entourage made up of crude and coarse-grained soldiers rather than servants. The cast also includes Angelika Kirchschlager playing the role of the young lover Octavian in all its sexual ambiguity.

Semyon Bychkov conducts Strauss with flexible nuances and a great deal of energy, sustained by the experience and long-standing Strauss tradition of the Vienna Philharmonic.