Richard Strauss: Intermezzo – Donald Runnicles

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.