Strauss, R.: Intermezzo op.72

This brilliant, inspired opera that Strauss wrote about himself, must easily be one of his best works. It is audacious in its subject material and altogether quite a remarkable achievement; he produced his own libretto for the opera, which is about a real-life misunderstanding which almost led to a divorce between him and his wife. The musical style, too, is novel, consisting mostly of fast recitative with occasional ventures into full operatic singing and into the spoken word. The music is some of Strauss's least accessible - deliberately mannered, dissonant, spare and post-modern. It is mostly neo-classical, but there are also strong hints of cabaret and expressionism. In addition, the orchestral interludes almost outweigh the sung passages in length, and most of the scenes are relatively fleeting. On this recording, Lucia Popp plays Strauss's wife admirably; her rendition is light and flirtatious, capturing all the shrewishness inherent in the role. Her voice reveals itself to be every bit as at home in the recitative and the spoken passages as it does in the more lyrical parts. Fischer-Dieskau is equally convincing as Strauss (the name is altered to Robert Storch in the opera). This role is a much smaller one than that of his wife, but it is no less sharply characterised. Fischer-Dieskau gives a convincing account of Strauss the calm and placid in the opening scenes, and also rises to excellent portrayals of Strauss the stormy in the scene in the Prater, and Strauss the passionate in the closing scene. The other, smaller parts are also outstandingly handled, and Sawallisch stamps his usual exacting and detailed interpretation on the work. The orchestral playing is always brilliantly clear, especially in the numerous instances of chamber music textures.

I call myself a Strauss fan but am also aware of the many problems that surround most of his masterpieces and certainly don't go overboard on all his works or performances thereof i.e. I like Karajans cutting of Rosenkavalier - it is far too long otherwise. I don't agree Arabella needs a cut although Strauss thought it did, but refrained in memory of the librettist, Hugo von Hofmansthal. That Strauss needed a Hofmansthal and couldn't replace him following his death is a curious fact of artistic life - given his own excellent libretto for this somewhat earlier piece.
So yes the libretto is excellent and the rendition here is awesome. Firstly, musically its a real gem, frankly probably his most lyrical and has the best romantic writing for a soprano ever. Secondly its compact and tight, none of the length of Rosenkavalier, Arabella, Die Frau etc and although the earlier reviewer suggests it's a modern piece, I think it is more late 19th Century romantic than much else - it has a lightness of touch in its lyricism, but it is by no means as modern and atonal (never in fact) as parts of Ariadne are for instance. Its rather as if Strauss is not trying too hard to be artistic rather simply to be wonderfully expressive with strong romantic tendencies!

OK so its a compact 2 CD work. Now for the analysis of the singing and speech. Popp hardly ever sang a wrong note though occasionally she phrased somewhat differently (her Czech origins perhaps) even in Strauss - here however she was at her absolute best. The vocal line suits her gorgeous voice and she lets rip with all her nuances and careful placement of emphasis, so much so, I couldn't believe she could sing like this for the whole of the first disc and in fact she doesn't, it just seems that way and of course it's probably not one straight recording though it sounds like it, such is her spontaneity here.

The spoken parts are wonderfully clear and in character, none of that different recording level and awkwardness you so often get on disc - it plays like a well rehearsed operetta in fact. The cook's dialect is interesting if hard to place but adds more colour to the whole. I understand and speak some German and I have to say I understood an awful lot of this recording , both sung and spoken lines which added considerably to my enjoyment.
All parts are well sung and taken, I didn't notice Dieskau and that's usually a good thing (he is like Windgassen - once you notice him he is past his vocal if not artistic best). The orchestra is fabulous and of course Swallisch - he is perhaps one of the greatest conductors ever especially in Strauss and Wagner, and here he is his usual self, quietly in control.

An absolute gem of a work and a recording that deserves to get a wider hearing! I can't believe I haven't checked it out before now and only did so when I came across the listing of Popp Swallisch, Dallapozza etc. I know the reason, it is because some of the biographies of Strauss and his music decry the work out of ignorance and sloth (they hadn't heard a modern performance and they didn't check the score!). As Popp demonstrates it would be a very brave soprano who takes this on on the stage (originally Lehmann), unless of course she was another Popp - Strangely I can think of one local voice that would be great in the part but this is Australia and the local opera is currently somewhat reticent about too many German operas even though they sell like hot cakes! So Popp it is and get this before it becomes a rarity!

12 out of 10!

Why the heck isn't this in the standard operatic repertory yet? The libretto, penned by Strauss himself, is based on an anecdote from his own marriage, when his wife Pauline mistakenly believed he was having an affair. The opera realizes Strauss' long-term goal of setting conversational German speech to dramatic music; repartee becomes music, and the score is an ever-mutating wonder. This recording, THE ONLY STUDIO RECORDING, will likely never be topped.

Lucia Popp turns in the peformance of her sadly short life, wholly inhabiting Strauss' loving portrait of his mercurial, to say the least, wife. Fishcer-Dieksau matches her as the long-suffering maestro. Conductor Sawallisch, who along with Solti, Karajan, and Bohm was one of the preeminent Straussians, has the full measure of the equally mercurial score. This opera is the middle step between the Prologue to Ariadne Auf Naxos, with it's freewheeling dialog, and Capriccio, the flowing conversation piece which closed out Strauss' operatic career. Is it a coincidence that all three of these "talk-y" operas are set in a backstage-at-the-opera milieu?

Interestingly, Strauss turned to contemporary bourgeois settings at the same time as Hindemith, Berg, and Weill were shocking German-speaking audiences with their own bilious, musically adventerous operatic portraits of the chaos that was the Weimar Republic and inter-war Vienna. But to paraphrase Alfred Hitchcock's immortal self-description, while the Modernists created slices of life, Strauss served up slices of cake. Audiences loved it, critics and musicologists never forgave him for it. Intermezzo may not be nutritious, but Strauss' sheer joy in music making is certainly delicious.