Richard Strauss described his two-act opera Intermezzo as a ‘bourgeois comedy with symphonic interludes’. The soprano role of Christine with her shimmering cantilenas represents Strauss’s wife Pauline, while the successful Court Conductor Robert Storch is Richard Strauss’s alter ego in a reality drama that was avant-garde for its time. This acclaimed production from director Tobias Kratzer brings Intermezzo into the present day, highlighting Strauss’s own clever switches between reality and fiction with stunning visual effects and a superbly characterful cast.

Sir Donald Runnicles has built his reputation on enduring relationships with several of the most significant opera companies and orchestras over the course of a career spanning 45 years. He is especially celebrated for his interpretations of Romantic and post-Romantic symphonic and opera repertoire, including a complete recording of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen on seven DVDs (2.107001)/four Blu-ray discs (NBD0156VX) that has been much admired by the critics: ‘Donald Runnicles leads pacy yet detailed readings of all four operas, and his orchestra is superb. His conducting abounds in characterful touches, witty gesture and refulgent emotion’ (Opera News).

‘Veterans of great Strauss performances of the past will surely not be disappointed, at least not reasonably so, by Maria Bengtsson’s Christine… Bengtsson made the role her own and also very much a creature of our own times, ultimately likeable through that earlier cited genuineness of emotion’.

‘[Tobias] Kratzer’s direction of Elliott Woodruff as Franzl and indeed the boy-actor’s own performance helped here too. Philipp Jekal’s Robert was finely sung and acted, treading difficult lines of his own without in any sense trying to upstage his partner-in-crime… Strong appearances in smaller roles from artists such as Clemens Bieber, Anna Schoeck, and Markus Brück likewise attested to thoughtful casting and direction. Assuming that performances of Intermezzo will, alas, continue to be rarities even in German-speaking lands, catch this if and when you can’ (Seen and Heard International).

Cast:
- Robert Storch: Philipp Jekal (baritone)
- Christine Storch: Maria Bengtsson (soprano)
- Franzl: Elliott Woodruff (actor)
- Anna: Anna Schoeck (soprano)