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First-class Second-rate Strauss
MIKE WHEELER visits the Buxton Festival
Stephen Barlow's inaugural season as Artistic Director brings Richard Strauss to the Buxton Festival for the first time (Buxton Opera House, Buxton, Derbyshire, UK, opened 7 July 2012), unless you count his edition of Mozart's Idomeneo, staged here in 2010.
Intermezzo, for which Strauss wrote his own libretto, is based on an incident in the composer's home life, when an innocent mistake ended up nearly wrecking his marriage. The central characters, composer and conductor Robert Storch and his wife Christine, are thinly disguised versions of Strauss and Pauline. A letter intended for someone else with a confusingly similar name arrives from a woman with a shady reputation, and the ever-volatile Christine jumps to entirely the wrong conclusion...
Copyright © 12 July 2012
Mike Wheeler,
Derby UK
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