»Der Rosenkavalier« is a “literature opera”, a disguise comedy, a trial about the transience of time, about holding on and letting go. A work of modern times, which looks back to a completely different time, a homage to an invented past: at times melancholic-lyrical, at times in a waltz beat, at times in a comic parlando.

We witness a passionate affair between the Field Marschallin and the young Count Octavian. The world of the Marschallin is governed by ceremony, publicity and outward appearances, and she senses the passing of time despite, or perhaps even because of, her joy in her young lover. Count Octavian turns out to be a joker and a disruptor of the traditional order. His post as Rosenkavalier leads him to the young Sophie, hitherto shielded from the world but used now to promote her rich father's status. Her husband-to-be is Baron Ochs auf Lerchenau, whose nobility obliges him to nothing and who brings comedically bawdy tones to the game. A complex intrigue runs its course …

Experience how time stands still and slips away, interweaving with Hofmannsthal's poetics and the musical language of Richard Strauss in this masterpiece of an artistic alliance.