I’ve linked to the utterly essential 1978 Munich production starring the astonishing trio of Gwyneth Jones as a properly young and lusty Marschallin, Lucia Popp as a Sophie capable of floating high Ds that are “heavenly, extraterrestrial, like roses from the most holy paradise…like a greeting from heaven…too strong for man to endure,” and Brigitte Fassbaender as an Octavian who sings unimpeachably and regards Popp with a face that could melt a stone. Plus the conducting of Carlos Kleiber, who accomplishes accelerandi and rallentandi that should not be possible. But when I listen I feel like Marlis Petersen in Barrie Kosky‘s equally essential reading for the same house in 2021: who, at the end of the first Act, drapes herself in a gown made of sequins and tiers of pink feathers and sits contemplating the nature of Time itself swinging on the pendulum of a grandfather clock. Same, tbh.

Michael MacMullen concurs:

Yes, it has its “talky” or noisy parts (the Act I levée and the Act 2 fight), and the Mariandel section in Act III seems to go on forever, but in its greatest moments, it takes you to places of rapture, pensiveness, wonder and resolution that cannot be surpassed — the post-coital opening of Act I, the Marschallin’s monologue that ends the Act, and the ethereal Presentation of the Rose. And then there is the final 12 minutes, one of the great moments in opera. The trio soars with emotion and ends on a note of forgiveness which soon after concludes with the sublime simplicity of the ethereal duet as it soars heavenly at its conclusion. For those few precious moments at least, all is right with the world. (I encourage Parterre readers to share their favorites recordings/video of these precious moments.)