Intermezzo

What does it feel like when, in an instant, your life is turned upside down? That’s what happens to Christine, the wife of court music director Robert Storch. A misdelivered letter leads her to believe that her husband is betraying her in a most shameful manner. She goes on an emotional rollercoaster ride, and the story seems to be veering towards a tragic end ...

After finishing the complex opera „Frau ohne Schatten“, Richard Strauss wished to work on a thoroughly realistic subject; he wanted the stage filled with the lives of real people. What could be easier than to dramatise an incident from his own turbulent married life, namely a piquant misunderstanding that led to a veritable marital crisis in the Strauss household. In short scenes that flash by almost cinematically, Richard Strauss draws a portrait of his wife Pauline and his own artistic life with a sure instinct for uncovering the theatrical in the mundane. The numerous symphonic interludes offer a glimpse into the emotional lives of the characters.

This musical love letter to Richard Strauss’s wife is now to be staged 100 years after the Dresden premiere by Axel Ranisch, a director active in the fields of cinema, television and theatre, who is also a passionate lover of opera.