BBC Music Magazine
‘Elisabeth Söderström was bravely adamant that this wordiest of all Strauss operas, based on a marital misunderstanding between the composer and his ex-diva wife, should be performed in the Glyndebourne audience’s English. And she was right... When Intermezzo is good, it’s great, and a true original. I love it very much and clearly Söderström did too.’
A bourgeois comedy
with symphonic interludes in two acts
Libretto by the composer
English translation by Andrew Porter
The Cast
Elisabeth Soderström soprano - Christine
Marco Bakker, baritone - Robert Storch
Elizabeth Gale, soprano - Anna
Richard Allfrey, spoken - Franzl
Alexander Oliver, tenor - Baron Lummer
Thomas Lawlor, bass-baritone - The Notary
Rae Woodland, soprano - His wife
Anthony Rolfe Johnson, tenor - Stroh
Donald Bell, baritone - A Commercial Counsellor
Brian Donlan, baritone - A Legal Counsellor
Dennis Wicks, bass - A Singer
Cynthia Buchan, soprano - Resi
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
London Philharmonic Orchestra
John Pritchard - conductor
Recorded live in Glyndebourne 13 July 1974
Broadcast on BBC 31 March 1975
The Sunday Telegraph
‘A very welcome issue of John Cox’s wonderful 1974 performance of Strauss’s domestic comedy. The composer and his tempestuous wife inspired the chief characters, with a story based on a real-life misunderstanding in their long marriage. Strauss’s own brilliant libretto has its poignant as well as sharp-witted moments. Elisabeth Söderström Christine is a tour de force: funny, strident and touching. Her English diction is perfect.’
International Record Review
‘Hitherto the obvious omission among Intermezzo recordings had been Elisabeth Söderström, the raison d’être of Glyndebourne’s production. Chandos deserves gratitude for making her incomparable performance available at last... In excellent voice, Söderström easily pulls unprepared high pianissimo attacks out of the air and takes any long-lined legato phrase in her stride. Hers is a virtuoso performance, utterly complete in its details yet seemingly spontaneous in every utterance. She is frequently hilarious, especially when the score calls for her speaking voice... Whether bickering with her composer husband, addressing her lawyer, or chattering with her ‘protégé’, Baron Lummer’s landlady, she’s fussy without being unbearable. At home when thinking of ‘the lonely, long, weary evenings here’, this Christine merits our compassion. In the final scene, the happy reconciliation with her husband is projected with true Straussian radiance... The LPO at Glyndebourne has always shown itself to be a terrific Strauss orchestra. Here its precision in even the fleetest and most delicate passages is especially welcome... The strings in this opera need phenomenal stamina, which the LPO displays in spades... This is obviously an essential acquisition for all Söderström admirers but also for all who enjoy the lighter Strauss.’
The Guardian
‘Strauss’s bittersweet portrait of a period of strain in his own marriage had to wait until the 1974 Glyndebourne festival for its UK premiere. At the insistence of the great Elisabeth Söderström, who played Christine, the opera was given in English rather than the original German, and this BBC broadcast from the opening run forms the latest installment in Chandos’s Opera in English Archive Series... Söderström herself is often devastating as the musician’s wife whose volatile temper masks a lonely vulnerability. There’s also a fine performance from Alexander Oliver as Lummer, the aristocratic extortionist who gradually homes in on her.’
The Sunday Times
‘... it is a delight to have her (Elisabeth Söderström’s) witty and moving Christine - a thinly disguised, affectionate portrait of Srauss’s notoriously temperamental wife... At Glyndebourne, she sang Andrew Porter’s exemplary English... and she is glorious in the lyrical passages.’
