Strauss: Intermezzo

Robert Storch is a famous composer, living with his spirited wife Christine at their Alpine villa. So, nothing at all like Richard Strauss and his wife Pauline then… That's the irresistible premise of Strauss's Intermezzo – a fizzing domestic comedy drawn directly from the composer's own life. It's an opera unlike any other, and a good production needs a light touch as well as clear-eyed psychological insight – exactly what director Tobias Kratzer brings to his new staging for the Deutsche Opera Berlin. This pared back updating, offers an unsparing – but very human - anatomy of a marriage, vividly conducted by Donald Runnicles.