Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Intermezzo (1924), Opera in Two Acts
Libretto by the composer
Christine – Maria Bengtsson (soprano)
Court Conductor Robert Storch – Philipp Jekal (baritone)
Baron Lummer – Thomas Blondelle (tenor)
Orchestra of the Deutsche Opera Berlin/Sir Donald Runnicles
Tobias Kratzer, stage director
rec. live, 1 & 5 May 2024, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Naxos NBD0188V Blu-ray [158]

Tobias Kratzer’s staging at the Deutsche Oper of a triptych of lesser performed dramas by Richard Strauss has been one of the most interesting projects on the European operatic stage of recent years. Over three seasons Kratzer has posed some fascinating questions about Strauss’s dramaturgy and answered them with the flair of an artist who is at the top of his game. The fact that he was partnered by Sir Donald Runnicles, whose final Strauss productions in Berlin these were, only added to the lustre.  

Kratzer chose to give us his three selected works in reverse order of composition, i.e. Arabella (1933 – already available on Naxos Blu-ray), Intermezzo (1924) and Die Frau ohne Schatten (1919). At first glance this might appear counterintuitive, but his staging of Arabella suggests that the opera was a key for him to unlock the theatricality of the other two works as well.

My colleague Roy Westbrook’s review of Arabella gives a short summary of how Kratzer staged each act. To recap and expand briefly, the production starts with a traditional first act staging set in the Vienna of the 1860s, cleverly rendered on a split stage. The central act, which takes place at the annual Fiakerball (coachmen’s ball), is set in long corridor outside the ballroom. With various entrances Kratzer takes us from 1860 to the time of the work’s composition in the 1930s (complete with brown shirted Nazis) to the present day. (It’s a sort of comprehensible version of the Götz Friedrich ‘Time Tunnel’ and surely a wry tribute by Kratzer to that famous Deutsche Oper Ring Cycle). The final act stays in the present (as do Intermezzo and Die Frau ohne Schatten). Video is used extensively. In the first act to project close-ups of the action, with camera operators deliberately visible, in the third act to help tell what is to some extent a reimagining of Zdenka’s story (as a counterpoint to the live action on stage): her ‘embrace’ of Matteo and then a vividly enacted duel between Mandyka and Matteo where Zdenka interposes herself between them.      

Rewatching Kratzer’s Arabella alongside this new Intermezzo I was reminded of Hofmannsthal’s letter to Strauss as he began work on Arabella: ‘Intermezzo…provides the most exact cue for the line along which my imagination will have to travel and is certain to give me definite stimulus and inspiration.’ It’s as if the reverse is true in these productions. The modernity and metatheatricality of Arabella adopted as the defining enabling characteristics of the presentation of Intermezzo and—to judge by the reviews of the production last year—of Die Frau ohne Schatten too. 

When he wrote that letter Hofmannsthal, a highly experienced man of the theatre of course, had come to appreciate the ‘new style’ Strauss had introduced with Intermezzo, with its cinematically influenced, rapidly changing scenes and conversational dialogue. At the time of the work’s creation though his stance was apparently somewhat different. He famously declared himself unavailable to write a libretto, viewing Strauss’s concept of domestic and autobiographical comedy based on his marriage to Pauline as infra dig, and so the composer wrote his own. (Lotte Lehmann in her variously titled book on Strauss has a different legend whereby Hofmannsthal produced a draft that was so insulting to Pauline Strauss that her husband seized back control. I know which version I think is more likely.)  Whatever one may think of Hofmannsthal’s reservations in the standard version of the legend however, there is an argument for saying that in 2025 the autobiographical elements—so heaped on at the work’s premiere, with the set design reproducing Strauss’s home and Joseph Correck playing Storch made-up to resemble Strauss—need help if they are going to have dramatic meaning and effect. Kratzer is only too aware of this and his production, by way of his approach in Arabella, gives us an ingenious, dramatically satisfying and very witty night at the opera.

We’re in a world of affluence and fame, very similar to the one Arabella concluded in. The characters live in expansive apartments, drive flashy cars and fly by private jet. It’s a perfect fit. There’s no outrageous rewriting of the scenario needed to accommodate the updating. Christine (Pauline) and Lutzer collide their cars rather than toboggans, and the conversation Storch (Strauss) and Stroh have in the Prater in the original, where the true basis of Christine’s misunderstanding becomes clear, now, eye-catchingly, takes place on a plane. Both seem entirely likely reimaginings. The only change of significance that Kratzer effects is to leave us in no doubt that Christine and Lummer do consummate their affair. This leaves the brilliant Maria Bengtsson with more to do as Christine—in particular to make her apparent inconsistencies and double standards psychologically plausible—but she’s more than capable, indeed she’s magnificent throughout as a singer and actor, the pivot of the whole production. Lehmann famously recounts in her book tactlessly remarking to Pauline Strauss that the opera was a ‘marvellous present’ to her from Strauss, to which Pauline replied, ‘I don’t give a damn’. Bengtsson’s Christine touchingly does. The two other main characters are inherently more superficial but convincingly portrayed: Philipp Jekal as Storch is a consummate egoist, convinced of his own genius and place in the universe, which the universe is apparently only too happy to affirm; and Thomas Blondelle as Lummer amusingly not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so that we don’t wonder why Christine tires of him but rather what she saw in the first place. Like Bengtsson, both male leads can sing as well as they act.

But Kratzer’s production has more to offer than simply updating the action by a century. He simultaneously plays on the autobiographical and metatheatrical, showing Christine/Pauline as a muse for a number of Strauss’s female protagonists. In the Act 1 scene where Lummer turns up at Christine’s room in the hope of receiving a handout from her, Kratzer has her take control of the situation by seizing costumes and ‘staging’ faux microscenes as part of her dialogue: we treated to Daphne, Rosenkavalier, and, most ominously, Salome in the space of ten dizzying minutes which leave Lummer decidedly flummoxed. This is not just witty but psychologically astute theatre. Christine is the driving force here, yes, but there’s a poignancy too. In real life, for all her imperiousness, Pauline’s role was effectively that of a muse, superintending the household whilst singers like Lehmann turned up at Garmisch to learn newly created roles with Strauss. And similarly, for all her fire in this scene, and in the hilarious Act 2 interview at her lawyer’s office where she turns up as an axe wielding Electra, there’s a vulnerability to Bengtsson’s portrayal of Christine born of not being able to fully share Storch’s glamorous musical life. At the end of Act 1, we see this again as Franzl, Christine’s son with Storch—portrayed here as a spoiled prodigy who will go on to emulate his father—watches Storch on TV enter the theatre for his gala premiere (an entry shown simultaneously on the video screen onstage). We observe Christine watching Franzl and realising that he too will be lost to her in the same way as Robert. It’s a striking moment. We get another in the chaos of the Act 2 scene where Christine is somewhat ineffectually attempting to organise her packing and exit from the matrimonial home, where videos from old black and white productions of Salome and Rosenkavalier play as a backdrop, like a false memory of a glorious theatrical past Christine was never part of.       

Taking of video, Kratzer’s use of it here is different to Arabella. There’s no split stage and no simultaneous close-ups. Apart from the instances I’ve mentioned above, it’s predominantly used to show us Runnicles and the fine Deutsche Oper orchestra playing during the famous intermezzi between scenes, both very welcome and entirely appropriate. There’s more meta-jousting here too though. In the interlude which precedes the Prater/Plane Gewitter und sturm scene, as we watch the orchestral play, their parts start to blow away in said storm which becomes fiercer and fiercer—a perfectly staged, unforgettable moment, again showing that the contribution of the video designers Jonas Dahl and Janic Bebi is integral to the production’s success.

There’s one final coup de thèatre at the opera’s end where in the transcendent music which is a hymn to Christine and Robert’s reconciliation, their apartment is bewitchingly transformed into a concert hall. Another clever piece of direction and design (and credit to the designer, the brilliant Rainer Sellmaier for all his work on the production) which is also shot through with ambiguity as far as Christine’s feelings are concerned, watching her husband conduct another masterpiece, thinking about the life she has just recommitted to, at about the same time as the audience feels they have at least discovered that this most elusive of Strauss operas can most certainly be a succès d’estime, if not a repertory staple.

It hardly needs saying how much Runnicles’s profoundly sympathetic direction adds to the evening. There is magnificent playing from the orchestra and the quality of the singing in all the parts is uniformly excellent. Finally, importantly for the Blu-ray and DVD, it should be mentioned what a good job Götz Filenius, the Video Director has done. Productions like this and Arabella (which he also worked on) which make copious use of video are notoriously difficult to capture. What should you focus on and when? He makes the right call at any given moment, giving us a good feeling for what the experience was like for a member of the audience in the opera house but also permitting us the privilege of being much closer to the action. A thought provoking, entertaining, musically rewarding experience then, and I’m very much looking forward to Die Frau ohne Schatten.

Dominic Hartley

Other review: Jim Westhead

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Other Cast
Franzl – Elliott Woodruff (spoken)
Anna – Anna Schoeck (soprano)
Stroh – Clemens Bieber (tenor)
Notary – Markus Brück (baritone)
Wife of the notary – Nadine Secunde (soprano)
Commissioner – Joel Allison (baritone)
Lawyer – Simon Pauly (baritone)
Singer – Tobias Kehrer (bass)
Resi – Lilit Davtyan (soprano)

Production team
Rainer Sellmaier, set and costume designer
Stefan Woinke, lighting designer
Jonas Dahl, Janic Bebi, video designers
Jörg Königsdorf, Dramaturgy
Götz Filenius, video director

Technical details
Picture format: 1080i High Definition
Sound format: PCM Stereo / DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Region code: 0 (worldwide)
Audio language: German
Subtitles: English, German, Japanese, Korean
Running time: 158 mins
No. of Discs: 1 (BD 50)