It will be no surprise that your alte Jungfer (pictured) is particularly fond of the music of Richard Strauss, having made my debut on Planet Earth just in time for a Met performance of Arabella.  12 years later, when I was permitted to select an opera for my first visit to that hallowed hall, it was Der Rosenkavalier. 

That Herb Graf production of Arabella (in English), which originally starred Eleanor Steber but also served as a vehicle for Lisa Della Casa, was retired just before I could have seen it, but I grew up with the Georg Solti recording on Decca, and it jumped to the front of my wish-list of operas to see (I played the Act I duet between Arabella and Zdenka till the LP wore out).  I had to wait until Otto Schenk brought his usual hyper-traditional approach to the Met for Kiri Te Kanawa in 1983.

I’ve subsequently seen several other productions, most recently in Budapest and at Wiener Staatsoper, but the one which most lingers in my mind was Marco Arturo Marelli’s for Oper Graz in 2008, a gorgeous production (he designs as well as directs) which captured the essence of the Ringstraße and the Prater without Schenk’s literal-mindedness.

This week’s performance comes to us from last summer’s Münchner Opernfestspiele starring Kammersängerin and Parterre favorite Anja Harteros and Bayreuth’s latest Holländer, Thomas J. Mayer, conducted by the eternally scrumptious Philippe Jordan.

Speaking of Bayreuth, for those of you whose time zones prohibited sane listening hours for the live broadcasts of the first week of the 2016 Festspiele (or who just can’t get enough Wagner), all seven operas have been uploaded to my Mixcloud page.  You know where to look!