Der Rosenkavalier (Der Rosenkavalier)

Der Rosenkavalier was first given at the Dresden Hofoper on 26 January 1911, conducted by Ernst von Schuch, with special trains laid on from Berlin for the occasion. Hofmannsthal invented the plot rather than adapting one, setting it in a Vienna of Maria Theresa's day that never quite existed and writing waltzes into the libretto knowing they were an anachronism. Strauss had come from Salomé and Elektra; here he turned to a comedy of manners with three soprano voices at its centre and an ageing woman who gives up her young lover deliberately. It has never left the repertory.