MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Strauss, (R.): Der Rosenkavalier, Op.59 (complete opera recorded in 1985)

"The Denon set of Der Rosenkavalier was recorded at the re-opening of the Semperoper...In almost every way I find the interpretation superior to the much-vaunted Karajan on DG. It is very much a young man's reading as compared with an old man's. And as the young man, Hans Vonk-Music Director-elect of the Dresden State Opera-conforms to Strauss's tempo markings, where Karajan is at all times slower, it does not seem unreasonable to prefer Vonk.

Vonk's cast, a finely-integrated ensemble, is headed by Ana Pusar-Joric, a soprano of Yugoslav provenance who none the less sings perfectly clear and idiomatic German. I much liked her Ariadne when the Dresden company came to the Edinburgh Festival in 1982. Here she exhibits the same qualities of pure, full tone, an ideal legato, and a feeling for the text.

Ute Walther's Octavian is a suitable partner for her Marschallins impetuous and ardent, but never too tomboyish or, figuratively speaking, thigh-slapping. Though a mezzo, her timbre is appropriately soprano-like with ringing high notes in the Presentation of the Rose. She makes an amusing Mariandl without overdoing the comic business." Gramophone