Hugo von Hofmannsthal was a brilliant dramatist, poet and Francophile (much like Puccini, a number of whose operas have a French source). Not surprisingly, therefore, the sources for Der Rosenkavalier are Molière’s comedies Monsieur de Pourceaugnac (1669) and Les Fourberies de Scapin (1671), and Louvet de Couvray’s novel-memoir Les Aventures du Chevalier de Faublas (1781), with touches of Beaumarchais’ Le Mariage de Figaro (1784) thrown in for good measure. Hofmannsthal was also inspired by the diaries of Empress Maria Theresa’s Master of the Household whose formal ceremonial style the poet was able to impart to some of the characters in the opera. The diaries also helped place the story of the opera in the 1740s, assisting Hofmannsthal to capture the spirit and trappings of the Viennese imperial court for the Marschallin’s palace. For Ochs, Hofmannsthal acquired a kind of Viennese dialect, slang and idiomatic turns of phrase much of which are of the poet’s own invention. (Even the “tradition” of the Cavalier or Bearer of the Rose is wholly invented; there was no such tradition.)
Special mention should be made of Octavian, the “boy-lover” of the Marschallin who is played by a female singer (mezzo-soprano). This gender-bending tradition goes way back in opera and drama as Alan Jefferson points out in his Der Rosenkavalier monograph for the Cambridge Opera Handbook series: “Shakespeare exploited the fact that his girls were always played by boys anyway; Hofmannsthal had his boy played by a girl. This produces a sexual ambiguity which can be developed in various situations of misunderstanding: the young leading character moves in and out of sexual roles as he/she moves in and out of female/male costume”. Octavian is a cousin of Cherubino in Mozart’s Figaro who is an older adolescent just coming into sexual maturity; but in Strauss’ opera, like Faublas in Couvray’s novel, he needs the direction and security of an older ‘tutor’. It is as if (as Jefferson points out) Mozart’s Countess and Cherubino launch a torrid affair, something that Beaumarchais actually explored in the third of his Figaro plays, La mère coupable.
It is interesting to note all of the well-established plot elements that Hofmannsthal includes in his libretto of Der Rosenkavalier that are found even in ancient, classical literature: love at first sight, the promise in marriage of a young, beautiful virgin to a lecherous old man, the country bumpkin putting on airs, the mistaken gender identities. To top this the poet adds the touching release of Octavian to Sophie by the Marschallin at the end of the opera, an act of true sacrificial love that both the poet and Strauss hoped would draw tears from the eyes of the audience. It does. But it is also a true comedy. Strauss insisted upon it in a letter admonishing Hoffmansthal during the time of creation: “Don’t forget that the audience should also laugh! Laugh, not just smile or grin! I still miss in our work a genuinely comical situation: everything is merely amusing, but not comic!”