Richard Strauss: Intermezzo Op.72

Richard Strauss

Intermezzo, Op. 72 

Performer:  Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Baritone), Lucia Popp (Soprano), Gabriele Fuchs (Soprano),
Adolf Dallapozza (Tenor), Gudrun Greindl-Rosner (Soprano), Karin Hautermann (Mezzo Soprano),
Martin Finke (Tenor), Raimund Grumbach (Baritone), Klaus Hirte (Baritone),
Jörn W. Wilsing (Baritone), Kurt Moll (Bass), Philipp Brammer (Spoken Vocals),
Erika Rüggeberg (Spoken Vocals), Elisabeth Woska (Spoken Vocals)
Conductor:  Wolfgang Sawallisch
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra



Written: 1918-1923; Germany

 Sheer joy. This account of a crisis in his marriage drew a brilliant score from Strauss, in which wit, sentiment and satire sit easily together.

Sheer joy, this CD transfer, still the only recording easily available of what is increasingly coming to be regarded as one of Strauss's finest operas. This account of a crisis in his marriage, all caused by a girl mistaking his name for someone else's, drew a brilliant score from Strauss. He set his own sparkling libretto to music in which wit, sentiment and satire sit easily together. The conversational recitative is a masterly example of continuous melody, matched by orchestral virtuosity in evolving melody from fragmentary phrases. The role of Christine is a gift to a lyric soprano and is marvellously characterized by Lucia Popp, neither too shrewish nor too soft-grained and (like Steffek, Söderström and Lott) conveying her irresistible attraction for her husband, Robert Storch (alias Strauss).

The latter role is forcefully sung by Fischer-Dieskau and there are excellent portrayals by the rest of the cast, especially from Adolf Dallapozza as Baron Lummer. But the prime pleasure in this technically brilliant recording—every word and note crystal-clear—is Sawallisch's comprehensive command of the opera and the flawless orchestral performance by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. The interludes, miniature tone-poems in themselves, are sumptuously played. But why no English translation in the booklet, as there was with the LP set? This, of all operas, needs one.

Gramophone [1/1989]