Language
Hofmannsthal's libretto is a combination of different forms of the German language. Members of the nobility speak in very refined language, often archaic (set to the time of the opera) and very courteous. In more intimate circles they use a more familiar style of speech (du). For instance, the conversations between Octavian and the Marschallin in the first act use the familiar "you" but switch back and forth between more formal speech (Sie) and the familiar "du".
The language used by Baron Ochs is flamboyant at best and, although refined, makes use of non-German words such as his expression Corpo di Bacco ("Bacchus' Body"). Some programmes even have a glossary section. The language used by Octavian when impersonating "Mariandel", and by other non-noble characters, is basically Austrian dialect, impossible to understand by a non-German speaker. The German used by the Italians, Valzacchi and Annina, is also very broken and mixed with an Italian accent, something planned by the authors for these characters.
In English translations of the opera, these dialects have been accounted for with varying degrees of rigor; the Chandos highlights version, for example, uses only standard British English.
Read more about this topic: Der Rosenkavalier
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“In a language known to us, we have substituted the opacity of the sounds with the transparence of the ideas. But a language we do not know is a closed place in which the one we love can deceive us, making us, locked outside and convulsed in our impotence, incapable of seeing or preventing anything.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)
“There’s a cool web of language winds us in,
Retreat from too much joy or too much fear.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
“I now thinke, Love is rather deafe, than blind,
For else it could not be,
That she,
Whom I adore so much, should so slight me,
And cast my love behind:
I’m sure my language to her, was as sweet,
And every close did meet
In sentence, of as subtile feet,
As hath the youngest Hee,”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)