This week, Strauss’s elegant romance brings the glamour and enchantment of 19th-century Vienna to the Met stage in a sumptuous production with conductor Nicholas Carter. Compelling soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen makes her role debut as Arabella, a young noblewoman in search of love on her own terms. Soprano Louise Alder makes her Met debut as her sister, Zdenka, and bass-baritone Tomasz Konieczny is the dashing count who sweeps Arabella off her feet.
The romantic comedy "Arabella" (1933) 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.
Join us for the broadcast of a performance recorded last fall, Saturday, January 31, at 1 p.m. here on Blue Lake Public Radio.
