Why revive Intermezzo? The opera director Tobias Kratzer sees Richard Strauss’s “bürgerliche Komödie” (“bourgeois comedy”) as part of the composer’s exploration of modern relationships.
Strauss took his own marriage as the inspiration for this opera about the dalliance of Christine, a conductor’s neglected wife, with an aristocratic con man – and the false accusations that the fictional conductor himself, Robert Storch, is the one engaged in an affair.
In this spectacular reimagining of the work, which bombed at its initial 1924 premiere, the lines between performance, production and reality blur; interludes between scenes feature the orchestra, under the excellent direction of Sir Donald Runnicles, playing the music we hear until the orchestra itself becomes part of the work as Storch himself is shown conducting it in absent-minded despair after receiving his wife’s accusing letter.
I do wonder what a female director might do with this piece.
Yet even as the performance works to highlight the social construction of the roles it depicts, deconstructing its representation of the hysterical wife through frequent costume changes (including one of an axe-wielding cavewoman), the troubling problem of the text’s misogyny remains unresolved. I do wonder what a female director might do with this piece.
The music is powerful and moving – and there are moments of humour and brilliance throughout, not the least of which is Maria Bengtsson’s marvellous performance as Christine.
Still, despite the great artistry, talent and performances on display, Intermezzo remains suspended between its off-key history and a resurrection whose staging might speak to the present with as much eloquence as its music. ★★★
- Deutsche Oper, Bismarckstr. 35, Charlottenburg, Jun 7 and 14 (in German with English surtitles), details.
