A Strauss Fixation

It is perhaps understandable that the muted reception of Die Frau ohne Schatten would have prompted Strauss to retreat temporarily from the world of high mythology and turn his attention to the vicissitudes of modern domestic life; but the semi-biographical Intermezzo remains a curious outlyer in the canon. Von Hofmannsthal refused to work on it and, without the poetic humanity of his regular librettist, Strauss let his penchant for irony and cynicism get the better of him. If the opera’s situations are the stuff of stock comedy, the mean-spirited portrayal of the wife and the apparent saintliness of the husband make for an uncomfortably one-sided critique of a turbulent marriage. Had Pauline Strauss ever wished to file for divorce, Intermezzo would have made superb evidence of her husband’s cruelty.

Tobias Kratzer’s new production at…