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This Rosenkavalier is a nearly perfect combination of music, singers, staging, and conducting. It examines the whole spectrum of love from every perspective: youthful idealism, consenting adultery, predatory lechery, and autumnal regrets. Richard Strauss's music is exquisite; the emotional climate includes tenderness, sophistication, and sentimentality, with a healthy dose of near-slapstick. This is a treatment to live with on a desert island. Kiri Te Kanawa garners most of the acclaim in what is probably her best role, but the entire cast is superbly chosen and works together in fine-tuned ensemble--not only the impulsive Octavian of Anne Howells, Barbara Bonney's sweet, timid Sophie, and Aage Haugland's, boorish, pretentious Baron Ochs, but everyone, including servants, domestic spies, and the social-climbing Herr Faninal. The sets and costumes are sumptuous; the sound and video images well defined. Georg Solti conducts with a subtlety and lyric lilt not always found in his work. --Joe McLellan
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