Strauss’s Most Beloved Opera!

Coming to the HGO in a stellar production from director Bruno Ravella! Disguises, duels, and duets are the order of the day in Richard Strauss' magnificently extravagant Der Rosenkavalier, or the Rose-bearer, being the name of an engagement tradition in mid-eighteenth-century Vienna. The task is simple: elect someone to deliver to your beloved a silver rose as proof of your love and reap the reward in matrimony. But woe-betide you if you choose the wrong man, especially if he is younger, more handsome, and altogether a lot more desirable than you...

What Is The Story?

Concerning the older and alluring Marshallian, a grand princess who finds solace in the arms of her much younger lover, Octavian, until the entrance of her hot-blooded and churlish cousin Baron Ochs. Setting his sights on the wealthy and beautiful merchant's daughter Sophie, he enlists the help of Octavian as his rose bearer. Of course, once they set eyes on each other, all is lost for both Marshallian and Baron Ochs. The former accepts her fate elegantly, the latter, well, not so much...