Ancien regie

“When it was new, Merrill and O’Hearn’s work sparkled, reflecting the piquancy of Strauss’s score and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s witty, learned libretto. But like any production left out in the sun a few decades, it gradually faded into mere decoration. The sets were dusted and periodically repainted, but they nevertheless grew stale. Der Rosenkavalier, a bittersweet parable of a society on the verge of convulsive transformation, became merely a plush, pretty nostalgia trip.” [New York Times]