With Arabella, Strauss’s elegant romance brings the glamour and enchantment of 19th-century Vienna to cinemas worldwide in a sumptuous production by legendary director Otto Schenk that “is as beautiful as one could hope” (The New York Times).
Synopsis:
Count Waldner, an unrepentant gambler, has brought his family to ruin. His only hope is to find a wealthy husband for his daughter Arabella, while his second daughter, Zdenka, must stay disguised as a boy so as not to cause her parents to incur unreasonable expenses. Proud Arabella counts on the arrival of a wealthy suitor, whereas the demure Zdenka secretly loves one of her sister’s suitors. The situation, made more complex by the cross-dressing, ends happily. The two girls are able to metamorphose into women in love, to escape the pretense of a corrupt and decadent society.
The romantic comedy Arabella was the final collaboration of Richard Strauss and his great librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal. While certain elements of operatic farce are present, there is great elegance about the work, and its characters’ journeys are moving and affecting in their own way. The title character—honest, pure, well-meaning—is one of opera’s most appealing and believable characters.
Soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen stars as the title heroine, a young noblewoman in search of love on her own terms. Radiant soprano Louise Alder is her sister, Zdenka, and bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny is the dashing count who sweeps Arabella off her feet.
This encore presentation is part of the Met’s award-winning Live in HD series, bringing opera to movie theaters across the globe.
