Strauss: Arabella

In 1860s Vienna the noble Waldner family have two daughters to marry off, and only enough money for one. Still, this is carnival season and sometimes fairy tales really do come true. Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal's final opera portrays a society in flux, and in his 2023 Berlin production, director Tobias Kratzer took that idea and ran with it – whirling the opera through a century and a half of changing values to find a new kind of happy ending. Sara Jakubiak sings the title role and Donald Runnicles conducts, in one of the landmark Strauss productions of recent years.