The Knight of the Rose

In Richard Strauss's opera The Knight of the Rose, comic situations and the lightness of the waltz intertwine with emotional poignancy, allowing the audience to enjoy a subtle story about love and the inevitable passage of time, permeated by irony and melancholy. This is especially clearly revealed in the Feldmarschallin's message to her beloved Octavian: Time is a strange thing. We live calmly, and time is nothing. But then suddenly you feel nothing but time. It is around us, it is also within us. It falls into our faces, it falls into the mirror, it flows into my temples. And between you and me too, it flows without a sound like in an hourglass.

The opera premiered on January 26, 1911, in Dresden. At the Latvian National Opera, The Knight of the Rose was staged only once, in 1930, under the musical direction of Georg Schnéevoigt and in a production by Ludolfs Liberts. The 2026 new production is created by director Viesturs Kairišs, set and costume designer Germans Ermičs, lighting designer Alex Brok Light Design, and movement director Elīna Gediņa.