For Der Rosenkavalier to succeed on record, the demands are formidable. The Marschallin requires a soprano able to project aristocratic poise while revealing private vulnerability, someone whose voice carries the weight of experience without sounding matronly. Octavian demands a mezzo capable of boyish ardor and erotic charge in equal measure, convincing as both lover and young knight. Sophie needs silvery purity without naïveté. Baron Ochs must be genuinely funny without descending into caricature, his bass rich enough to anchor the ensembles yet nimble enough for Strauss’s patter. And the conductor must navigate three hours of music that shifts constantly between farce and elegy, chamber intimacy and orchestral grandeur, without letting any seams show. Here are my ten essential recordings of Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, in no particular order.
Herbert von Karajan / Philharmonia Orchestra (Warner)
The benchmark against which all others are measured. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf does not simply sing the Marschallin; she defines her, every syllable carrying marginalia of irony, regret, and raised-eyebrow wit. Hers is Lieder technique applied to opera, and it works because Schwarzkopf understood that the Marschallin is performing for herself, staging her own renunciation as a private theatre of dignity. Christa Ludwig, ardent and unfinished at twenty-eight, provides necessary heat as Octavian. Teresa Stich-Randall’s Sophie remains the most pitch-perfect on disc, gleaming like Meissen porcelain. Otto Edelmann’s Ochs avoids vulgarity while remaining infectiously comic. Karajan shapes the score as a series of withdrawals, each climax yielding to something more intimate, and producer Walter Legge’s engineering remains remarkably vivid. The mono version from 1956, which Schwarzkopf supervised late in life, has particular warmth; the sound sharper, cooler, perhaps more honest.
Georg Solti / Wiener Philharmoniker (Decca)
One of few complete recordings in the stereo era, from 1968, and sonically spectacular. Where Karajan caresses, Solti interrogates, reducing the sugar content considerably. Régine Crespin’s Marschallin lacks Schwarzkopf’s textual sophistication but compensates with seamless lyricism and a voice perfectly suited to depicting a woman just past her prime; the slight wear becoming an asset. Yvonne Minton and Helen Donath, as Octavian and Sophie, achieve something rare in the Presentation of the Rose: genuine erotic bewilderment, two people undone by proximity. Manfred Jungwirth’s Ochs is appropriately boorish yet vocally resplendent. Pavarotti’s Italian Singer cameo is shamelessly gorgeous and sets the standard for this prestige role. The Vienna Philharmonic plays with characteristic glow, though Decca’s brightness can turn punishing on lesser equipment.
Erich Kleiber / Wiener Philharmoniker (Decca)
The Vienna State Opera’s postwar golden age, preserved in mono from 1954 that still breathes. Sena Jurinac’s Octavian wears the trouser role like a second skin: boyish swagger masking real confusion, warmth, and impulsiveness in equal measure. Hilde Gueden’s Sophie has a unique silvery allure, dangerous sweetness of the kind that gets people into trouble. Ludwig Weber brings his signature Ochs to life with treacly bass, witty inflections, and authentic Upper Austrian dialect, comic without vulgarity, dignified even in humiliation. Maria Reining’s Marschallin, often underrated, refuses the neurotic self-examination that later interpreters brought to the role; she is aristocratic in the truest sense, suffering privately. Kleiber père conducts with structural discipline and lyrical warmth, tempos keenly judged, textures transparent. Some find his precision cold; others recognize it as an expression of respect.
Carlos Kleiber / Bayerisches Staatsorchester (Orfeo)
Carlos Kleiber conducted Der Rosenkavalier eighty-two times in Munich alone, and you can hear the sheer breadth of performance experience compressed into this recording from 1973: the accumulated wisdom, the jokes that still land, the passages where the orchestra seems to breathe as a single organism. Brigitte Fassbaender’s Octavian may well be the finest on record, her rich mezzo deployed with conversational ease, as though Strauss’s vocal lines were simply how she thought. Lucia Popp’s Sophie is definitive, sweet and never cloying with steel beneath the silver. Karl Ridderbusch sings Ochs gloriously, though his elegant voice perhaps suits the boor less than a true buffo bass might. Claire Watson’s Marschallin knows everything the role requires but can no longer quite deliver it, which creates its own poignancy. The performance is cut, and moves like it knows where it’s going. The Orfeo SACD remastering sounds terrific.
Rudolf Kempe / Metropolitan Opera (Walhall)
A live broadcast from 1956 that captures the Met at its postwar peak, with a cast of exceptional distinction. Lisa Della Casa’s Marschallin has been called ideal: silvery, poised, elegant, with crystalline diction and an allure that makes her relinquishment of Octavian genuinely poignant. If she lacked the vocal weight some bring to the role, her interpretive purity remains unmatched. Hilde Gueden repeats her celebrated Sophie, trilling and girlish with unerring accuracy. Risë Stevens’s Octavian is a pleasant surprise: her tough lower register and dark mezzo color prove considerably more boyish than many a more celebrated exponent. Otto Edelmann brings comic authority to Ochs. Kempe revels in the waltz music, conducting with exuberance and affection, and the Met orchestra responds with warmth. The live recording captures something studio versions rarely achieve: the sense that anything might happen.
Karl Böhm / Wiener Philharmoniker (Deutsche Grammophon)
A live Salzburg performance from 1969 that catches Böhm on fire, with all the mess and electricity that implies. Christa Ludwig, having graduated from Octavian to the Marschallin, brings specific knowledge of someone who once stood on the other side. Her Act I monologue achieves a precision of feeling that borders on miraculous: every phrase weighted, nothing wasted, the recognition of time’s violence delivered without self-pity. Tatiana Troyanos brings dark mezzo intensity to Octavian, and Edith Mathis floats Sophie’s high lines as though gravity were optional. Theo Adam’s Ochs is characterful if not ideally cast vocally. The performance is imperfect in ways that feel human. The sound is surprisingly good for a live recording of its vintage.
Leonard Bernstein / Wiener Philharmoniker (Sony)
The rogue version from 1971, beloved and hated in equal measure. Bernstein conducts as though he wrote the score himself, which is either revelation or vandalism depending on your tolerance for interpretive ego. The opening scene sprawls in post-coital languor; the final trio becomes a protest against the very formality that structures it. Christa Ludwig’s Marschallin is vocally taxed in places but emotionally ferocious. Gwyneth Jones’s stentorian Octavian will trouble some listeners, but her commitment is total. Lucia Popp’s Sophie is (again) a treasure, Walter Berry an attractively baritonal Ochs. John Culshaw’s production swathes everything in reverb, which obscures detail but creates atmosphere. For Bernstein partisans, essential. For purists, perhaps maddening.
Bernard Haitink / Staatskapelle Dresden (Warner)
Three radiant voices at the peak of their powers, in search of a conductor. Kiri Te Kanawa’s Marschallin is pure legato beauty, aristocratic poise without the struggle that gives the role its weight. Anne Sofie von Otter repeats her superb Octavian. Barbara Hendricks brings unexpected depth to Sophie, if occasionally sounding under pressure, suggesting a woman more complicated than the role usually allows. Kurt Rydl’s Ochs is solid if not memorable. Haitink’s conducting is the compromise: too careful, too respectful, unwilling to risk vulgarity and therefore unable to achieve transcendence. The Viennese propulsion that should drive the waltzes into breathless passion never quite materializes. The waltzes should make you slightly dizzy. These merely sway. Still, the vocal pleasures are considerable in this 1990 recording, and the Staatskapelle Dresden plays with characteristic warmth.
Fritz Reiner / Metropolitan Opera (Naxos)
If the mark of a great Rosenkavalier conductor is showing equal love for every bit of it, Reiner may have been the greatest of all. Every moment has dramatic authenticity, whether framing the singers with orchestral details or projecting the ceremonial mindset of the Marschallin’s levee. His conducting is tight yet allows the poetry of the score to emerge, never rigid. Eleanor Steber’s Marschallin offers effortless high notes and aristocratic mezzo-ish color; her singing is steady, controlled, and as sumptuous as Strauss’s orchestration. Risë Stevens provides a firm, impetuous Octavian. Erna Berger uses an almost childlike timbre for Sophie, establishing a contrast with the more knowing voices around her. Emanuel List’s Ochs is wonderfully smarmy and self-satisfied, his big black bass voice deployed with theatrical cunning. The broadcast sound from 1949 is dry but clear, a window into a great house at a great moment.
Clemens Krauss / Wiener Philharmoniker (Guild)
A live Salzburg performance from 1953 that refuses sentimentality, conducted by Clemens Krauss with evident authority. Krauss deserves credit for realizing there is something satirical about the work, that it depicts a style of life deserving of lampooning as much as mourning. His orchestra attacks the music with flair, the rhythmic flow smooth and natural, tempos fleet throughout. Maria Reining sounds in fuller, finer voice here than in her studio recording for Erich Kleiber; you may hear her at her plangent best, youthful-sounding and infinitely touching in her monologues. Lisa della Casa, as Octavian, is wonderful in a role she would later leave behind for the Marschallin. Hilde Güden soars stratospherically as Sophie with unerring accuracy. Kurt Böhme draws out the comedy of Ochs, living the part despite a tendency toward Fafner-like heaviness. There is real energy about this recording, capturing an ensemble that knew this music in their bones.
Bonus
For those willing to venture into historical sound, Lotte Lehmann’s 1933 excerpts with Robert Heger offer the source code for everything that followed. Though less than half the opera survives, Lehmann’s Marschallin burns with inner conviction that later, more sophisticated interpreters sometimes lack; she believes what she is singing, and that belief transmits across decades of deteriorating shellac. Elisabeth Schumann’s Sophie established the template: silver, pure, the voice of someone who has not yet been touched by what the opera knows. Richard Mayr’s Ochs, endorsed by Strauss himself, declaims more than he sings, creating a character who seems to have wandered in from a different, earthier theatrical tradition. The sound is archaeological. The performances are not.
