Richard Strauss in Berlin – Elektra & Intermezzo at the Deutsche Oper Berlin

ELEKTRA 

A thrilling and adventurous piece of writing, Strauss’ one-act tragedy, Elektra, premièred on 25 January 1909 at the Schauspielhaus, Dresden, became the first of the composer’s collaborations with the librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal.  

Known for its abrasive music and flights into atonality, the opera’s an immensely difficult and musically complex piece to master and the role of Elektra (Agamemnon’s avenging daughter) requires a singer with grit, determination and stamina to pull it off.  

An emotionally-demanding role, it’s also an emotionally-charged one as well therefore I felt that Elena Pankratova delivered a fine, fiery and gutsy performance of power, substance and strength. On stage for the opera’s duration of about 145 minutes, she surely stamped her credentials on one of the great female operatic roles.  

More or less kept a prisoner in the courtyard of Agamemnon’s palace in Mycenae, looking in a rather poor and dilapidated state echoing, perhaps, the state of flux following her father’s killing, Ms Pankratova slowly and assuredly developed and moulded the strong-minded and determined character of Elektra tightly controlling her emotions and expressions while at the same time playing the waiting and psychological game for her moment – revenge. How sweet it is! 

There were many good scenes in this production to shout about and one that stood out gently unfolded when Elektra confronts her murderous mother Klytämnestra (Doris Soffel) seen arguing the toss over family matters with Klytämnestra engaging in conversation with her daughter from a palace balcony but later confronting her face to face in the courtyard.  

At ground level, Elektra roughed her up a bit by menacingly teasing and cajoling her every inch of the way and wielding an axe in doing so therefore pinpointing her weaknesses and guilt and, at the same time, making fun of her lover, Aegisth, the role admirably sung by Burkhard Ulrich. 

Perhaps fishing for sympathy, Klytämnestra confides to her daughter in a moment of tenderness and understanding that she has been suffering nightmares of being killed by her son, Orestes, the role well sung and acted by Tobias Kehrer, attired in a blood-red cloak, the only hint of colour in an extremely dark, sombre and sinister production. I felt that Elektra showed a bit of sympathy for her disturbed state of mind but that soon evaporated in the heat of their exchange. 

A tender and quiet moment, however, truly came by way of Elektra recognizing Orestes in the courtyard with the deuce staring longingly and lovingly at each other as if in another world. Here the brutal and forceful voice of Ms Pankratova gave way to a more soft, tender and lyrical approach, thereby showing the quality, range and, indeed, the serene beauty of her voice. 

As Elektra’s sister, Chrysothemis, Camilla Nylund delivered the goods in an extraordinary performance playing her role in a somewhat meek-and-mild manner. She didn’t really protest or enact vengeance against her mother. I think all she really wanted was an easy-going life, longing to escape the feuding family, marry and raise a family.  

The stakes were high, though, when Elektra pressed and demanded her help in avenging their father’s death. She even went on to praise her beauty promising that she’ll act as a maidservant in her bridal chamber in exchange for help. But sisterly love ended there – Chrysothemis proved obstinate to the core. 

In the end Orestes comes to Elektra’s aid carrying out her bidding. Not only did he murder his mother but butchered her lover, Aegisth, too. That axe was well and truly used! Elektra breaks into a broad grin on hearing the news of their deaths and ecstatic, jubilant and full of high spirits she dances the ‘dance of death’ to near exhaustion joined by eight dancers from the opera ballet of Deutsche Oper who added so much to this triumphant scene celebrating Elektra’s glorious and hard-won victory. 

First seen at Deutsche Oper Berlin on 3 November, 2007, it was a brilliant production helped so much by Bernd Damovsky’s dark and foreboding metallic-looking burnt orange-coloured set thereby expressing in detail the very essence of the brooding and unsettled nature of the opera. 

Danish-born conductor, Thomas Søndergård, chief conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, found himself in the pit capturing so well from his players the very essence of Strauss’ richly-textured and atmospheric score that was so engaging, enthralling and thrilling to hear especially when performed by Deutsche Oper orchestra comprising a fine bunch of players who really know their stuff!  

Richard Strauss: Intermezzo – Markus Brück, Maria Bengtsson – Deutsche Oper Berlin, 2024 (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)

INTERMEZZO 

Described by Richard Strauss as a ‘bourgeois comedy’ in two acts with symphonic interludes, the scenario of Intermezzo, set in Austria at the beginning of the 20th century, became the composer’s eighth opera. It received its première on 4 November 1924 at the Schauspielhaus, Dresden, under the direction of Fritz Busch.  

Depicting fictionally the personalities of Richard Strauss as ‘Robert Storch’ and his argumentative and neurotic wife, Pauline de Ahna, as ‘Christine Storch’, the opera’s based on a real-life incident in their lives apropos a misdirected letter received at their residence due to Strauss’ name being confused with another. Intercepted (and wrongly interpreted) by his fierce tigress wife, she immediately jumps to conclusions believing that her husband is cheating on her. Hurriedly, excitedly, she applies for a divorce. 

Only after such a misunderstanding as this has been cleared up does domestic peace slowly return. But this incident in Intermezzo offers an opportunity to draw a multifaceted and psychologically sensitive portrait of a woman who struggles with her unfulfilled existence but one who defines herself through her role as being the caring wife of a successful musician. 

Incredible as it may seem, Frau Strauss, a fiery and naïve character by all accounts, was unaware of the subject-matter of Intermezzo before the first performance. But when Lotte Lehmann (who took the role of Christine at its première) congratulated her on this ‘marvellous present to you from your husband’, she’s reported as saying: ‘I don’t give a damn.’ Neither did she give a damn when she hurled the piano score of his first (and not very successful) opera, Guntram, at him with members of the cast and the orchestra looking on. 

However, I should imagine that Strauss harboured ideas for some time about writing an opera with ‘autobiographical’ elements in mind and while working on Die Frau ohne Schatten – whom his wife commented after the première that it was ‘the biggest load of rubbish she has ever encountered’ – Strauss asked Hugo von Hofmannsthal to write the libretto.  

Although he declined the invitation, he did recommend the dramatist/critic, Hermann Bahr, for the job. However, he turned Strauss down, too, advising him to write his own libretto. Therefore, Strauss duly complied and created a very successful, witty, ‘in-your-face’ text with the main characters easily recognizable as the quarrelling Strauss couple. 

Therefore, bowing to the needs of audiences of the 1920s to experience contemporary opera on stage, Strauss was in his element and in keeping with the operas of, say, Arnold Schönberg’s Von Heute Auf Morgen (From Today to Tomorrow), a comedy of manners and Paul Hindemith’s Neues von Tage (News of the Day), a satire of modern life, celebrity and marriage. 

Although a great success with the audience at its première due to its ‘autobiographical’ references (juicy stuff, eh!) Intermezzo was treated very unkindly by the critics for the same reason. Paul Hindemith, though, lauded the work. Much to the composer’s regret, Intermezzo quickly fell out of fashion.  

Richard Strauss: Intermezzo – Philipp Jekal, Maria Bengtsson -Deutsche Oper Berlin, 2024 (Photo: Monika Rittershaus)

Even today Intermezzo is rarely performed but that’s hard to believe after seeing this fine, intelligent and forthright production directed by Tobias Kratzer (premièred at Deutsche Oper Berlin on 25 April 2024) who gave the opera a brilliant ‘makeover’ fuelling its story to a contemporary age with mobile phones at the ready – and in the audience, too, I’m afraid. Damn! 

Therefore over 14 fast-moving scenes the audience was treated to a wholesome feast of joyful, bitterness and anger all wrapped up into one big parcel between the two argumentative protagonists: Christine Storch (sung and superbly acted by Swedish-born soprano Maria Bengtsson and Robert Storch, the famed composer and conductor performed by German-born baritone, Philipp Jekal, who revelled in the role. 

They’re bickering at each other right from the outset while her husband’s preparing to go on a lengthy concert tour packing his bags in a waiting taxi (the vehicles on stage, too) leaving Christine at home running the household which irritates her intensely while looking after their young son (Franzl) played so well by Elliott Woodruff. He’s either imitating his father conducting or sitting at a minute grand piano. 

Bored with her husband, Christine confesses to her well ‘put-upon’ maid Anna (played by Anna Schoeck) about the downside of being married to a famous man. However, finding herself loose and fancy free, she takes a spin in her smart new car and has a ‘fender bender’ with another driven by Baron Lummer, authoritatively sung and played by Belgian-born tenor, Thomas Blondelle. An opportunist through and through, he exploits her fragility and loneliness to try and con her out of a thousand German marks (no euros here!) to aid his musical ambitions. 

In fact, this scene ignited the overall stage action in true Kratzer style as he gives it a lovely twist drifting miles away from the libretto as Christine’s chance meeting with Lummer normally comes about at the toboggan run but with global warming on the rise the white stuff’s getting rather scarce! Perhaps that’s why the scene was cut! 

But there were so many good scenes to enjoy such as this. And one came towards the end of the first act when Christine opens a letter addressed to her ‘husband’ suggesting that he’s having an affair. She hints at divorcing him. 

But her son, being groomed to follow in his father’s footsteps, supported him. Therefore, towards the end of the first act, he complains bitterly to his mother about the circumstances surrounding his parents’ differences. A moving and tragic scene, I felt, it highlighted the fact that in a comedy the mask of tragedy is never far away quietly lurking in the background. 

When the curtain rises on the second act, the scenario moves on to Robert enjoying a game of skat with some of his pals in the green room utterly confused as to why his wife is demanding a divorce while the neighbouring scene witnesses Christine arriving at the office of the Notary (played so smoothly and efficiently by Gerard Farreras) wielding a long-handled axe – most probably borrowed from Elektra. All hell breaks loose in an utter amusing scene which flows nicely into the third scene in which Robert meets Kapellmeister Stroh on a flight back home. Get the picture of the confusion of surnames. 

At first glance, one’s eyes are focused on Robert and Stroh (sung by Clemens Bieber whose white hair, incidentally, imitates Runnicles’ wild mop!) putting the matter straight about that letter in a minute set resembling an aircraft cabin while the rest of Deutsche Oper’s vast stage was taking up by a video sequence of the space surrounding the aircraft in flight. 

A clever bit of stage business came by way of the aircraft running into turbulent air highlighted by the passengers’ erratic movements while at ground level Christine was equally erratic losing her rag at a high rate of knots perfectly amplified in the pit with the scores flying off the players’ music stands by the dozen floating randomly in mid-air. Yet another great video sequence offering a visual aspect and an extra dimension to a great scene. 

I think that Kratzer excelled, too, in the scene in which Christine entertains Baron Lummer at her apartment in what could well be described as a ‘meeting of misunderstandings’. Over the course of polite conversation and so forth she dresses on stage as the Marschallin from Der Rosenkavalier, Arabella (holding that glass of water!) and Salome seductively dancing round her ‘prey’ (a Baron Ochs type character!) to no avail. A truly memorable moment in the whole show. 

And memorable, too, were the four orchestral interludes ravishingly played as one would expect from such a fine bunch of players in the ranks of the Deustche Oper orchestra. All of them were projected on to a very large screen above the stage offering the audience a rare chance of seeing Maestro Runnicles and his charges in the pit fully in action let alone the close-up shots trained upon one or two of the players. 

The first interlude ‘Travel fever and waltz scene’ opens with an excited flurry of activity focusing on Maestro Storch preparing for his concert tour while the second ‘Dreaming by the fireside’ offers a musical love-letter from Storch to his wife. The third ‘At the card table’ (opening the second act) mirrors the elegance of 18th-century chamber music while the fourth ‘Happy conclusion’ depicts Storch’s vindication and his happy and jubilant return home.  

This production of Intermezzo was one to chalk up. All the scenes were highly focused not just by Rainer Sellmaier’s brilliant sets and costumes and Stefan Woinke’s lighting scenario but by a host of video sequences masterfully created by Jonas Dahl and Janic Bebi that enhanced and gave so much depth and interest to the production overall. I hope the company keeps it in their repertoire.  

By the way, the opera’s title refers to the ‘intermezzi’ that were popularly staged during intervals of the more serious operas of the 18th century with the scenario usually focusing on marital confusions and other such light-hearted and trivial matters circulating round love, life – whatever! 

As an aside, Richard Strauss, in a letter to his wife, listed three areas in which gave his life meaning and purpose: nature; notes; family. He also said: ‘What could be more serious than married life? Marriage is the most profound event in life. The spiritual joy of such a union is elevated by the arrival of a child.’ 

SYMPHONY CONCERT 

As an ‘extra’ to enjoying a marvellous feast of Richard Strauss’ operas, I was treated to a symphony concert featuring the Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin conducted by Lorenzo Viotti who offered a rich and varied programme comprising Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche (Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks), Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) and Also sprach Zarathustra. 

With symphonic tone poems such as Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, Ein Heldenleben and Also sprach Zarathustra, Strauss – an important link between ‘romanticism’ and 20th-century modernism – became one of the most internationally-acclaimed young German composers at the turn of the 20th century. This trio of masterful works marked him out as the ‘Young Savage’ of the day who didn’t shy away from musical shock value for the sake of effect. 

Therefore, with the Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin under Lorenzo Viotti, chief conductor of Amsterdam Opera, he showed that the fascination of Richard Strauss, the symphonic composer, is still untouched today, thereby offering a fine interpretation of Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, a work harbouring a lively and inviting score focusing on the mischievous and cheeky antics of the well-loved German peasant folk hero, Till Eulenspiegel.  

The 14th-century prankster’s represented by two themes: the first, played by the horn, a lilting melody that reaches a peak then falls downwards ending in three long-held high notes of substance each progressively getting lower. The second, written for clarinet, crafty and wheedling, suggests a trickster doing what he does best.  

In fact, Strauss cleverly found the exact instrumental sounds and colours depicting Till’s reckless adventures ranging from him scattering pots and pans all over the show to mocking the clergy epitomized by deep-sonorous notes of a clarinet sent him to the gallows with thunderous bass trombones and raging timpani having a big say in his demise. 

The central work of the programme fell to Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) composed in 1948 when Richard Strauss was 84. The title ‘Four Last Songs’ was provided posthumously by Strauss’ good friend, Ernst Roth, who published them as a single unit in 1950 after the composer’s death in September 1949. The songs, of course, are the composer’s final completed works and they’re suffused with a sense of calm, acceptance and completeness. Apart from ‘Frühling’ they all deal with the subject of mortality. 

All the settings are scored for a soprano while the songs have prominent horn parts referencing, perhaps, Strauss as his wife Pauline de Ahna was a soprano and his father, Franz Joseph, a horn player – principal horn at the Munich Court Opera.  

Interestingly, the world première performance was made possible by the magnanimous intervention of the music-loving Maharaja of Mysore, Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar Bahudar, who didn’t even attend the concert but guaranteed the performance so that the Four Last Songs could be recorded and, therefore, added to his large record collection. 

Towards the end of ‘Im Abendrot’ following the soprano’s intonation of ‘Ist dies etwa der Tod?’ (‘Is this, perhaps, death?’), Strauss musically quotes his own tone poem, Death and Transfiguration, written 60 years earlier, quoting the seven-note phrase (known as the ‘transfiguration theme’) seen as being the fulfilment of the soul through death. 

One of the last wishes that Strauss made was to the fact that Kirsten Flagstad should be the singer. ‘I should like to make it possible,’ he said in a letter to her, ‘that the songs should be at your disposal for a world première in the course of a concert with a first-class conductor and orchestra.’ That ‘wish’ certainly came true as Four Last Songs received its world première at the Royal Albert Hall on 22 May 1950 featuring Flagstad and the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler.  

The soprano on this occasion, Maria Motolygina, a graduate of the prestigious Young Talent Programme at the Bolshoi Theatre and currently a member of Deutsche Oper Ensemble, recently singing Contessa Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro and soon to take on Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, looked radiant on stage and her soft, rich tonal voice harbours the right emotions for such a delicate, serene and devotional work as Four Last Songs seemingly transporting one to a world of peace and tranquillity underlying the spiritually-inspired writings of Hermann Hesse and Joseph von Eichendorff. The audience loved her performance. They made it known by four curtain-calls. 

However, providing depth and a spirited and fulfilling ending to the concert fell to Strauss’ popular tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra premièred on 27 November 1896 by the Frankfurt Municipal Orchestra under the direction of the composer as part of the Museum Concerts in Frankfurt am Main.  

Duly becoming one of Strauss’ best-known works Also sprach Zarathustra, based on the four-volume philosophical work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, written by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche between 1883 and 1885, focuses upon Nietzsche’s meditation upon man’s place within the cosmos.  

The hero of the work (named after the pre-Christian Persian prophet) could well be said to exemplify the fin-de-siècle artistic ideals of the time – a Super-Being so to speak, a free thinker, a free spirit, who’s searching for higher aspirations than what his world can offer. 

Offering so much to so many people, Zarathustra’s well-loved introduction ‘Sunrise’ is world renowned having been used in a host of TV adverts and films most notably Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 blockbuster, 2001: A Space Odyssey thereby catapulting Zarathustra into popular culture – if only by its opening fanfare, lasting just short of two minutes! 

The same passage was also parodied in the film Barbie and throughout the 1960s/70s, the BBC used it during its coverage of the Apollo missions to the moon. Even Elvis got into the act by employing those triumphant bars as an introduction to each of his concerts throughout his later career and one of my favourite American big bands did the passage justice when Stan Kenton jazzed it up in 1973 featuring his iconic Wall of Sound. 

Without doubt, Strauss certainly provided an uplifting start to Zarathustra with thundering timpani triplets penetrating one’s inner-self and trumpets blazing away thus building up to a thrilling climax in which the organ supplies a solemn liturgical element which Strauss underlines by leaving it, with all stops open, dramatically holding on by itself for a full two beats after the orchestra has ceased thereby painting an illuminating abstract musical canvas of the sun rising over the earth and the moon awakening the whole wide world. 

Where was the organ? I discovered after the concert that an portable electronic organ, nestled among the harps, was hired for the job but, really you cannot beat the real thing – a large pipe organ.  C’est la vie! 

However, there’s far more to the score than just ‘Sunrise’ and completing Zarathustra are nine thoroughly interesting sections highlighting what a marvellous work Strauss wrote. They comprise: ‘Of the Hinterweltler, ‘Of the Great Longing’, ‘Of Joys and Passions’, ‘The Song of the Grave’, ‘Of Science or Learning’, ‘The Convalescent’, ‘The Dance Song’, ‘The Song of the Night Wanderer’ and ‘Musical Interpretation’. 

A spiritual-type atmosphere threads its way through the well-loved theme ‘Of the Hinterweltlers’ performed clearly and distinctly by the string section and in the quiet, devotional plainsong setting of ‘Credo in unum deum’ the horns are self-evident while the Nature motif, heard in all its consummate glory, truly sums up ‘Of the Great Longing’. 

The same emotions spring to the fore, too, in the Joy motif particularly in ‘Of Joys and Passions’ which gently leads into ‘The Song of the Grave’ featuring a striking melody by the oboes standing so clear and proud from the rest of the players while ‘Of Science’ Strauss symbolizes learnedness by introducing a dry fugue for the deepest instruments with a theme based on Zarathustra’s grand opening. 

The central section ‘The Convalescent’ blasts forth with the sound of steel-biting trumpets as heard in the ‘Introduction’ with Strauss’ score gently gravitating towards Zarathustra’s collapse while a dramatic crescendo by the brass section clearly restates the Nature motif.  

And with Zarathustra’s slow recovery, the passage leads into the ‘The Dance Song’ satirically highlighting the Super-Being dancing a wild cabaret-type Viennese waltz, featured Konradin Seitzer, leader of the orchestra, playing the tender and lyrical solo passage to near perfection. An outstanding musician! 

Punctuated by the chimes of midnight ‘The Song of the Night Wanderer’ (the final section) ushers in a mood of hushed mystery prevailing over the work’s closing pages followed by a quiet, subtle return of the original struggle between the tonalities of B major/minor (representative of Humankind) and C major (symbolic of the mysteries of Nature) emanating by high playing from the flutes, piccolos and violins thereby energising the work to a peaceful conclusion but in the end struggling to do so as the Nature motif, heard in a much higher key, energetically played by cellos and basses in a light-hearted pizzicato fashion, have the last say.    

A work I greatly favour, this performance of Zarathustra by the Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin, firmly under the control of Lorenzo Viotti, proved a grand affair complementing well Deutsche Oper’s mini-Strauss opera festival. 

The eminent Strauss scholar, Norman Del Mar, greatly favoured Zarathustra, too, and when artistic director of the Norfolk & Norwich Triennial Festival conducted an excellent performance of the work in St Andrew Hall, Norwich, as part of the 1979 festival meeting with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra led by Barry Griffiths. I remember the performance well. There was no grand pipe organ either. An Allen 200 electronic organ was hired to do the job. 

A thoughtful and philosophical person, Del Mar prophetically said: ‘In the end, regardless of all Man’s achievements and hard-won peace of mind, Nature inevitably has the last word, as Nature always will, whatever beings Earth may conjure up to dispute her sovereignty.’  

After the work’s première Richard Strauss said: ‘I did not intend to write philosophical music or to portray in music Nietzsche’s great work. All I wished to convey by means of music was an idea of the development of the human race from its origins to the various phases of its development, religious and scientific, up to Nietzsche’s idea of the Super-Man.’ 

‘Without music, life would be a mistake.’ Thus spoke Friedrich Nietzsche.  

ELEKTRA
Conductor: Thomas Søndergård
Director: Kirsten Harms
Set designer / costume designer: Bernd Damovsky
Chorus master: Jeremy Bines
Choreographer: Silvana Schröder
Klytämnestra: Doris Soffel
Elektra: Elena Pankratova
Chrysothemis: Camilla Nylund
Aegisth: Burkhard Ulrich
Orestes: Tobias Kehrer
Der Pfleger des Orestes: Jared Werlein
Die Vertraute: Hye-Young Moon
Die Schleppträgerin: Sua Jo
Ein junger Diener: Thomas Cilluffo
Ein alter Diener: Michael Bachtadze
Die Aufseherin: Maria Motolygina
First magd: Annika Schlicht
Second magd: Martina Baroni
Third magd: Arianna Manganello
Fourth magd: Maria Vasilevskaya
Fifth magd: Nina Solodovnikova
Das Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin
Der Chor der Deutschen Oper Berlin
Tänzerinnen des Opernballetts der Deutschen Oper Berlin
Dancers: Denise Noack, Giorgia Bovo, Chia Ying Chiang, Natalia Palshina, Annick Schadeck, Anna Athanasiou, Vasna Aguilar, Yuri Shimsoka

INTERMEZZO
Conductor: Sir Donald Runnicles
Director: Tobias Kratzer
Set designer / costume designer: Rainer Sellmaier
Lighting designer: Stefan Woinke
Video designers: Jonas Dahl, Janic Bebi
Dramaturgy: Jörg Königsdorf
Court conductor Robert Storch: Philipp Jekal
Christine, his wife: Maria Bengtsson
Franzl, her little son: Elliott Woodruff
Anna, the chambermaid: Anna Schoeck
Baron Lummer: Thomas Blondelle
Conductor Stroh: Clemens Bieber
Notary: Gerard Farreras
Notary’s wife: Nadine Secunde
Commercial councillor: Joel Allison
Judicial councillor: Simon Pauly
Kammersänger: Tobias Kehrer
Resi: Lilit Davtyan
Das Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin