This acclaimed performance of Der Rosenkavalier opened the 1949-50 season at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and was televised live by ABC. The sound track of the transmission has been restored for this release. The inimitable Fritz Reiner, whose mastery of orchestral balance and excellent sense of line and architecture made him one of the greatest conductors of the music of Richard Strauss, directs a superb cast which includes two American-born singers, Eleanor Steber, who created the eponymous rôle in Barber’s Vanessa, and Risë Stevens, whose varied career included Hollywood films and Broadway musicals.