So here it is, the Rosenkavalier that launched a thousand blog posts. Or not quite, since this DVD was filmed some days after the first night, by which time Glyndebourne had quietly adjusted mezzo Tara Erraught’s wig and costume to render them less unflattering. However, her Octavian – or Octavian as presented by Richard Jones’s production – remains a problem: she gains some unconvincing sideburns but otherwise never looks anything but unequivocally feminine. There’s none of the androgynous quality in her characterisation or appearance, therefore, that Strauss and Hofmannsthal so clearly wanted to play with in their Komödie für Musik.

As one would expect from Jones, there’s much that is striking in the staging, though, and plenty of interesting ideas and minutely observed details – it’s impeccably filmed, too. But the garish brightness of the admittedly often brilliant sets and costumes – taking in stylised references from the Baroque right through to the time of composition and and beyond – offers little opportunity for interpretative light and shade. The director, in his desire to avoid sentimentality, renders Hofmannsthal’s other subtly drawn characters two-dimensional: Ochs is pure boor, robbed of any residual aristocratic charm; the Marschallin becomes more self-determined than mopey, but is also cold, engaged in just one of a string of unrewarding affairs (the adolescent Mohammed is clearly next on the list); Sophie is little more than a commodity traded for her father’s gain. Much of this is in the libretto, I suppose, but it only tells half the story, with the result that it’s difficult to care very much about the characters: I’ve rarely felt so unmoved by the Trio or final duet.

The cast itself doesn’t help matters. Kate Royal’s Marschallin is sung well enough but the sound is more sinewy than creamy. Erraught sings with bright, soprano-like timbre but Teodora Gheorghiu sounds a little thin as Sophie. Lars Woldt, a lighter bass than we often hear as Ochs, is impressively free and easy in his singing, but he, like the cast in general, doesn’t make enough of the words. The LPO play with considerable virtuosity for Robin Ticciati, whose reading is clean and unsentimental. Straussians will no doubt want to see this production, and it certainly engages the brain. Go elsewhere (either Kleiber version, for a start) if you want a Rosenkavalier DVD to engage the heart.