Richard Strauss, Der Rosenkava. This item is unavailable.Richard Strauss, Der Rosenkava

Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, one of the most beloved comedies, in all of opera, inaugurates the Metropolitan Opera Classics Library, a distinguished new series of books created to honor the one-hundredth anniversary of the Metropolitan Opera and to bring to its readers a greater appreciation of opera as literature.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal's magical story, to which Strauss set his music in the first decade of the 20th century, has been specially adapted for this volume by Anthony Burgess, himself a master novelist, composer, and literary critic. His "Cavalier of the Rose" is, from start to finish, an enchanting and scintillating retelling of Hofmannsthal's witty, satirical — and touching — libretto about beauty, age, and love among the Viennese aristocracy of the mid-eighteenth century.

Also contributing to this volume is George R. Marek, well-known music critic and scholar, who has written an introduction to Der Rosenkavalier and an essay on Strauss and Hofmannsthal, a perceptive reevaluation of these two turn-of-the-century geniuses — so different in temperament and background — and of their extraordinary collaboration. Anthony A. Bliss, General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera, has written a foreword.

Included is the complete libretto in German and in English and a wealth of illustrations featuring the story of Der Rosenkavalier in photographs selected from the Metropolitan Opera's production.

This first volume in The Metropolitan Opera Classics Library is the perfect introduction to Der Rosenkavalier, a glittering masterpiece that has been a favorite in opera houses throughout the world since 1911. It will also provide a new dimension to those opera devotees who long ago took Strauss's and Hofmannsthal's finest achievement into their hearts.