In their final collaboration, composer Richard Strauss and librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal created a comedy of deceit centred on Arabella, a young Viennese maiden whose impoverished parents try to marry off in order to save the family finances. But the protagonist, played by the remarkable soprano Rachel Willis-Sørensen, wants to find love without constraints. Otto Schenk’s acclaimed production is back on stage, after the New York Times endorsed it as “as beautiful as you could wish for”.