Wozzeck, Royal Opera, 19 May 2023

Royal Opera House

Wozzeck – Christian Gerhaher
Marie – Anja Kampe
Captain – Peter Hoare
Doctor – Brindley Sherratt
Margret – Rosie Aldridge
Drum Major – Clay Hilley
Andres – Sam Furness
First Apprentice – Barnaby Rea
Second Apprentice – Alex Otterburn
The Fool – John Findon
Soldier – Lee Hickenbottom
Tenor Solo – Andrew Macnair
Marie’s Son – Jonah Elijah McGovern

Deborah Warner (director)
Hyemi Shin (set designs)

Nicky Gillibrand (costumes)
Adam Silverman (lighting)
Kim Brandstrup (choreography)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: William Spaulding)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Antonio Pappano (conductor)

Images: Tristram Kenton
Andres  (Sam Furness), Wozzeck (Christian Gerhaher)

Thirty years ago, in Sheffield, a teenage schoolboy saw his first opera in the theatre. It was Wozzeck, directed by Deborah Warner for Opera North. Quite an opera with which to begin, you might say, and indeed in many ways it was, yet why would you wish to begin with something that was not ‘quite an opera’? He knew a little more, though not much, opera not having been part of his childhood or more general homelife, nor indeed of his schooling. Plus ça change… By that time, he had just begun to explore the operas of Mozart, those you might expect: Figaro, Don Giovanni, and The Magic Flute. He had also, slightly clueless, speculatively bought a reduced, ‘historic’ recording of Tristan und Isolde from WH Smith and had watched a video, kindly lent by his music teacher, of Die Meistersinger. That, however, was it. He had not yet knowingly listened to music of the Second Viennese School, though that also was suddenly about to change. It is no exaggeration to say that those hundred minutes in the Lyceum Theatre changed his life. 

From 1993 to 2023: an avid (if, born perhaps of that initial experience, selective) opera-goer travelled across another English city for the first night of a new production of Wozzeck, also directed by Deborah Warner, now for the Royal Opera. Full circle? Not really; nothing ever is. Our protagonist has, for better or worse, had numerous experiences, music, dramatic, emotional, and intellectual, since; he is certainly no longer a boy. Yet Wozzeck, which for him ever since has had at least as strong a claim as any to be the single greatest opera of the twentieth century, exerts, if anything, a still greater fascination and admiration, certainly a greater love, than it did then, born of three decades of living with it. How, then, would Warner II fare in circumstances both old and new?

Truth be told, if you spend your time in Wozzeck thinking about a previous production or performance, something has gone wrong (either with you, what is onstage, or both). I did not. In any case, comparisons either with Warner’s first staging or with when I had previously heard Antonio Pappano conduct the work (twenty-one years ago for Keith Warner’s then-new production, in Pappano’s first season at Covent Garden) would largely be meaningless, given the vagaries of memory and my lack of a written record. Deborah Warner in 2023 does not seem to me especially to take a view or standpoint, at least not exclusively. This is not a Wozzeck that (over-)emphasises the brutality of military life and war, or expressionist experimentalism, or any one thing, though many such things are present. The action is already taking place as we take our seats, soldiers (an excellent troupe/troop of actors) relieving themselves in various ways, cleaning up, doing very much what soldiers do in barracks. That establishes an expectation of realism which is not entirely fulfilled, but rather is supplemented, so that as the action develops, as different standpoints are afforded by the work (and probably its creator), we have opportunity to take them too. Everything takes place more or less where one might expect, but there are always refreshing touches of set design, costume, lighting, or detailed Personenregie – let alone the musical performances – to enable us to take a fresh look and listen. The drama unfolds, with great immediacy, yet always it feels that this is ultimately Wozzeck rather than ‘Deborah Warner’s Wozzeck’, whether that feeling, even that possibility, be a fond illusion or otherwise. Different settings for different scenes – no fewer than fifteen of them – present themselves without fussiness or fetishisation: this is a light, enabling, generous realism that can shade almost imperceptibly into other, complementary aesthetics as required. Credit is surely due both to the design team and to the Royal Opera House’s technicians and actors, who accomplished this feat with such apparent ease. Rehearsal surely paid off.

 

Slightly stylised trees, Cross-like, hint at Wozzeck’s fate, albeit without redemption, but also at a natural world beyond that neither knows nor cares, yet in some sense frames tragedies that lie in stark contrast, being entirely the creation of man. There remains a Romantic desire to escape this miserable world, even if only to Berg’s family estate (Berghof) in Carinthia. Like so much else, though, it is not possible. The blood-red moon and the black, unfathomable lake dominate our vision and consciousness as natural and human boundaries. And finally, in that ultimate, heartbreaking scene of horror: the child turns to the wall in front of which the other children have just been playing, to see painted on it the news they have so cruelly, carelessly delivered. His mother is dead. He turns around and walks off, alone. The drama stops, silence cruelly denied by some idiot’s premature applause—but even that could not quite break the punch to the solar plexus. 

Much of that is, of course, a musical punch. Pappano really seems to be at his best right now. Shortly after thinking his Turandot perhaps the best I had heard from him, I found this Wozzeck at least close to equal, and in ways that surprised me. Without wishing to play that game of illusory comparisons, however tempting, I found this an infinitely more engaging experience than in 2002. Often quite extraordinary orchestral precision, for which one must of course above all credit the orchestra itself, laid bare the framework of closed forms in themselves, their multifarious musical procedures objects of an almost yet not quite Neue Sachlichkeit fascination, but also showed them to be the engines of a dramatic progression that, however Wagnerian it may often sound, is at least as much an alternative to Wagner’s method. There were wrenching, late-Romantic passages, of course, precisely where one would need and expect them, but this was also a musical drama that prefigured Hindemith, Weill, perhaps even Berg’s own teacher, Schoenberg. This was not always a Wozzeck that rose from the bass line, though sometimes it did, but it hinted more than usual at Berg’s later writing, whilst also suggesting an earlier, almost Mendelssohnian Romanticism. Like Warner’s production, it afforded different standpoints, without sounding merely sectional. 

I have been fortunate to see some extremely fine Wozzecks in those years since my first encounter (Andrew Shore on that first encounter included). Christian Gerhaher’s thoughtful, collegial approach, placing himself and his character at the dramatic hub, gaining meaning as much from interaction with colleagues as from his considered yet apparently spontaneous way with the text, has nothing to fear from any of them. His performance, worlds away, as is proper, from the beauties of his celebrated Wolfram, was yet equally well judged. Indeed, I wonder whether it heralds a new chapter in his career. For now, though, it will more than do in and of itself.

Wozzeck, Marie (Anja Kampe)

There was splendid chemistry with his Marie, Anja Kampe. I was about to say ‘we tend…’, but should really only speak for myself: I tend often somewhat to overlook the tragedy of Marie’s death, so overwhelmed am I by that of Wozzeck. Here I felt greater parity, doubtless a matter of Warner’s Personenregie but also of Kampe’s portrayal. (It is more or less impossible for an outsider to distinguish between the two.) This important corrective was brought into further relief by Anna Picard’s excellent programme note on ‘Maria and her World’, whose closing words seem very much to refer to what we saw and heard: ‘She is no Kundry. Neither is she a Judith or the hysterical Woman in Marie Pappenheim and Arnold Schoenberg’s monodrama, Erwartung. Her murder is not dressed up as a form of release for Wozzeck or a point of debate. It is simply a domestic tragedy of a very ordinary, and ever modern, kind.’ Which also brings us back to Gerhaher’s Wozzeck, for his very haplessness – what art lay in that – also contributed to that very non-release, felt (at least by me) more emphatically than I can recall.

Captain (Peter Hoare), Wozzeck

All in the cast contributed to the greater dramatic (and musical) whole, so much as to suggest unusually fruitful close collaboration between all concerned. Sam Furness’s Andres surprised me, not least because I often find myself wondering where the role went, thinking it smaller than I had expected. Not here: this was a character sympathetic to Wozzeck who yet had his own story to tell. Likewise Rosie Aldridge’s spirited Margret, whose spot in the second tavern scene almost had time stand still as the world disintegrated around her. Peter Hoare’s Captain and Brindley Sherratt’s Doctor made a sharply etched pair: guilty, yet not guilty, like all in the world we saw. Well, perhaps not quite all, for it is difficult to find any grounds to absolve the Drum Major, here given an appropriately nasty, bullying, yet finely sung performance by Clay Hilley. William Spaulding's Royal Opera Chorus was on outstanding form too. 

What, then, should a Wozzeck accomplish? There can be no definitive answer, no more than for any artwork in performance. Different productions, different performances, different audiences will all render such categorical statements in vain. If I have learned one thing over the past thirty years, it will be that. That said, if one does not emerge from a performance convinced that it is one of the greatest of all operas – ranking beyond that is a mere parlour game – it will have been in vain. My first experience was not; nor, emphatically was this: a searing and strangely refreshing Wozzeck, which I hope and intend to revisit soon.

Boris Godunov, Royal Opera, 19 June 2019

Royal Opera House

Images: (C) ROH 2019/Clive Barda

Boris Godunov – Bryn Terfel
Andrey Schchelkalov – Boris Pinkhasovich

Nikitch – Jeremy White

Mityukha – Adrian Clarke

Prince Vasily Ivanovich Shuisky – Roger Honeywell

Pimen – Matthew Rose

Grigory Otrepiev – David Butt Philip

Hostess of the Inn – Anne Marie Gibbons

Varlaam – John Tomlinson

Missail – Harry Nicoll

Frontier Guard – Alan Ewing

Xenia – Haegee Lee

Xenia’s Nurse – Fiona Kimm

Fyodor – Joshua Abrams

Boyar – Christopher Lemmings

Holy Fool – Sam Furness

Richard Jones (director)

Miriam Buethner (set designs)

Nicky Gillibrand (costumes)

Mimi Jordan Sherin (lighting)

Ben Wright, Danielle Urbas (movement)

Gerard Jones (associate director)

Trinity Boys’ Choir

Royal Opera Chorus and Extra Chorus (chorus master: William Spaulding)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Marc Albrecht (conductor)

Dmitri (David Butt Philip ) and Pimen (Matthew Rose)

Maybe there is something to be said after all for the 1869 version of Boris Godunov. There is obviously a huge amount to be said for what we see and hear, the problem lying in comparisons with later versions. However, unlike 2016, when Richard Jones’s production had its first outing, I actually felt – as opposed to being able to come up with an argument in my head – what particular virtues it might have. It no longer came across as the ‘sketch’ of which I wrote three years ago, so long as one were able to keep 1872, or indeed aspects of Rimsky-Korsakov, out of one’s mind. That I was, more or less, speaks perhaps of still more distinguished performances than last time around – and not only of greater receptivity on my part during Britain’s own, unending Time of Troubles.

Shuisky (Roger Honeywell) and Boris (Bryn Terfel)

That began, I think, at the top – or rather in the pit. Last time around, Antonio Pappano had offered one of his better performances at Covent Garden. Marc Albrecht, however, proved surer, more focused, more grimly fatal, aided by an Orchestra of the Royal Opera House on fine, impressively dark form. Just what this version in particular needs then: almost enough to have one shrug at losing the Polish act, if not quite the clock. The chorus, almost as much the opera’s foundation as the orchestra, was on good form too: the sound of Mother Russia and her tribulations resounding from and through multiple pasts: that of the historical Boris Godunov, nineteenth-century reinventions, and our own. The rawness of its cries certainly brought out that quality in Mussorgsky’s ‘original’ text. One could doubtless pick holes, were one so inclined; I admit my lack of competence to judge the Russian. Neither this chorus nor any non-Slavic one will ever quite attain that ‘Russian’ sound many have in their heads from recordings, some from performances too. But so what? This is an opera for the world; if your sole objection is that it does not sound as you ‘feel’ it should, based upon what you have heard before, then perhaps the fault may lie with you. Nationalism may help to ground nineteenth-century opera; it should have no place in twenty-first-century performance and reception.

Holy Fool (Sam Furness) and children's choir

The same goes for the stage performances too, most highly distinguished on their own terms. Bryn Terfel’s portrayal of Boris seemed to me to have developed considerably from last time, though it had had much to offer then too. In some ways, his facial expressions, his haunted demeanour, their combination with vocal delivery seemed to have drawn closer to a great, non-Russian predecessor in the role, John Tomlinson (seen at Covent Garden under Semyon Bychkov in 2003). Not that this was anything other than Terfel’s own portrayal, of course. As Varlaam, Tomlinson himself proved in finer vocal fettle than I had heard for some time, his as fully committed a performance as we have come to expect over the years. It was, perhaps, Matthew Rose as Pimen who offered the finest vocal performance of all, the monk and chronicler – apparently innocent, but who knows? – brought vividly to life with surpassing vocal radiance. David Butt Philip’s Grigory benefited from a typical detailed, intelligent performance, with Roger Honeywell a properly wheedling Shuisky. This was a Boris with no weak links, cast from depth, other impressive performances coming from Jette Parker Young Artist, Haegee Lee and treble, Joshua Abrams, as the doomed ruler’s children. Sam Furness's Fool rightly held sway in his scene - and perhaps swayed the tsar too.

Boyars, Pimen, and Boris

Jones’s production has much to be said for it, especially when compared to more recent stagings I have seen from him (Katya Kabanova and La Damnation de Faust, for instance). The ritual re-enactment above of Dmitri’s assassination not only chills, but imparts unity and immediacy. That we see the re-enactment re-enacted, or threatened to be, below too heightens the sense of never-ending sorrow, of political and cultural impossibility. The red hair that marks out erstwhile and present Tsarevichi, as well as pretender Grigory, is but the most visible strand that seemingly marks out the fate of all. Lightly nineteenth-century dress reminds us, like Pimen’s chronicle, here literally writ large, that this is a contested history, in which generation after generation, not least those of Pushkin and Mussorgsky, will continue to rewrite to their own purposes. There is no peace in Russia, no peace in the world at large. It is not, perhaps, a production that has a great deal to say in and of itself, but it amply permits us to continue on our sorry path, both as chroniclers and readers.

Murder of Tsarevich Dmitri

With that, it is goodbye to the Royal Opera House for me for a little while. Next month, I shall leave the country again for a while. Will the ‘will of the people’ to which Boris attributes the Tsarevich’s death continue to prevail? As much and as little as ever. Who will be tsar when I return? A Godunov, a Shuisky, a Romanov? May God have mercy on the souls of the crowd, if not those whose Kremlin machinations have done this to us.

LPO/Jurowski - Stravinsky and Berio, 8 December 2018

Royal Festival Hall

Stravinsky: Variations (Aldous Huxley in memoriam); Threni; Tango

Berio: Sinfonia

Elizabeth Atherton (soprano)
Maria Ostroukhova (mezzo-soprano)
Sam Furness (tenor)

Joel Williams (tenor)

Theodore Platt (baritone)

Joshua Bloom (bass)

The Swingles

London Philharmonic Choir (chorus director: Neville Creed )

London Philharmonic Orchestra

Vladimir Jurowski (conductor)

Were there any justice in this fallen world, serial Stravinsky – not to mention Webern – would be played on every street corner, or at least in every concert hall. Come the revolution, perhaps. In the meantime, let us be grateful for every opportunity we have to hear this exquisite, deeply moving music. There were occasional signs of the (slightly) tentative to the London Philharmonic’s performance of the Aldous Huxley Variations under Vladimir Jurowski: perhaps no surprise, given infrequence of performance. There was nothing to disrupt, though: anyone listening, whether for the first or the n^th time, would have gained a good sense of what the work was ‘about’ – if only ‘itself’ – and how it ‘went’. Jurowski’s trademark formalism – I am tempted to say ultra-formalism – clarified structure and procedures. Stravinsky’s post-neo-Classical intervallic games, symmetries, inversions, and yes, melodies registered not only with great clarity but also unerringly chosen colour. That involved opposition – for instance, strings versus woodwind – as much as blend or synthesis. If the variation for twelve violins – ‘like a sprinkling of very fine broken glass,’ the composer approvingly reported of the premiere – hinted at Ligeti, even Xenakis, there was never any doubt as to the mind, the ear behind it. As ever, the more Stravinsky changed, the more he stayed himself. And never more so than here, in his ultimate reconciliation with the (Schoenbergian) number twelve.

Threni – to give it its full title, Threni: id est Lamentationes Jeremiae Prophetae – has not proved fortunate in performance, whether in quantity or quality. Its 1958 premiere in Paris seems to have been an unmitigated disaster. The recording on Columbia/Sony’s Stravinsky Conducts Stravinsky series gives little idea of the work’s expressive riches. I have only heard it once before in concert, in an excellent performance from the BBC Singers, London Sinfonietta, et al., under David Atherton, at the Proms in 2010. Here, Jurowski, the London Philharmonic Choir, the LPO, and some of the soloists did an excellent job; some of the latter’s colleagues proved more variable, a pity in a work of chiselled precision, in which accuracy is far from everything, but remains a necessity to unlock those expressive riches. Again, though, one should not exaggerate: no one would have left without a strong sense of the work and what it might be in performance. Moreover, cantorial tenor Sam Furness, deputising at very short notice, shone perhaps the most brightly of all. Necessity, as so often, proved the mother of invention.

In context, it sounded not unlike a continuation of, or perhaps better a posterior preparation for, the procedures heard and felt in the Variations. There were anticipations, moreover, of the Requiem Canticles, heard only last month as part of this same Stravinsky series from the LPC, LPO, and Jurowski: most obviously, perhaps, in the spoken choral text. That said, Threni may speak with Stravinsky’s unmistakeable voice, but it also, like all of his works, speaks with its own unmistakeable voice. Does the music ‘express’ something beyond itself, that age-old Stravinskian question (itself surely a clever pose, partly intended to prevent us from asking other, more apposite questions)? Here the question, perhaps rightly, remained unanswered, even unanswerable. The cumulative drama, mathematical and yet surely also theological, of the ‘Querimonia’ (first section of ‘De elegia tertia’) registered both directly and at a distance, female choir members and trombones punctuating its sections, each adding a further male soloist, with an almost divine ‘rightness’ that, like a Bach cantata or passion, brooked no dissent. Likewise the relative rejoicing of the opening of the following section, ‘Sensus spei’, Les Noces distilled and serialised, spoke of and through intervals, but yet also of something else, which may or may not have lain beyond. As words and music progressed – I am tempted to say turned – it was as if the spirit of plainsong, its function if not its style, were reinvented before our ears, until darkness fell toward its close. ‘Invocavi nomen tuum, Domine, de lacis novissimo.’ The final ‘De eleigia quinta’ seemed to perform a synthetic role, an impression enhanced by the occasional surprisingly Bergian harmony. A text whose straining to be ‘timeless’ rendered it all the less so had been consulted, read, heard, perhaps even experienced. Had it, though, been understood? That, one felt, was emphatically not the point.

I had forgotten that the 1940 Tango was on the programme. It therefore came as all the more lovely a surprise to hear it at the beginning of the second half, performed neither by piano nor orchestra, but by The Swingles: a winning introduction to Berio’s Sinfonia. Its opening chord, instrumental and vocal, acoustic and electronic, primaeval and modern, announced an entirely different approach to synthesis, all-embracing in a mode I am almost tempted to call ‘popular’ as opposed to ‘aristocratic’. Or such, perhaps, is Berio’s trick – for surely he is just as adept with games and, yes, masks as Stravinsky. It was interesting to note, though, perhaps especially during the first movement, how much I re-heard Berio through lessons learned from Stravinsky (and beyond him, Webern): just, indeed, as I re-heard words from Lévi-Strauss and others through lessons I was learning from Berio (and had from Stravinsky, Webern, et al.) Again, such is surely part of the game, the aesthetic, even the humanistic vision. In the second movement, my ears again doubtless schooled by serial Stravinsky, musical procedures once again sounded very much to the fore. That was also, I suspect, partly a consequence of Jurowski’s aforementioned formalism. Precision in performance ultimately enabled connection in listening.

How to listen to the third movement? So much there is present in our consciousness already; or is it? (Or are its quotations and underlay really so very different from other music(s)?) ‘Keep going’. At any rate, I found myself convinced I was hearing a very different performance from any I had heard before, certainly quite different from that given by Semyon Bychkov at this year’s Proms. ‘Keep going.’ What sounded like a weirdly unidiomatic way with Strauss and Ravel proved compelling in this context. How can anyone make a reminiscence from Wozzeck sound amusing? I genuinely do not know, but Berio – and his performers – did. We kept going – or did we?

The fourth movement emerged ‘as if’ Mahler’s ‘O Röschen rot’ were rewritten before our ears, within our minds – which, surely, it both was and was not. The music retained a trace of that Mahlerian function, whilst (apparently) effortlessly remaining itself. ‘The task of the fifth and last part,’ Berio wrote, ‘is to delete … differences and … develop the latent unity of the preceding fifth parts.’ Again, it both happened and did not. A traditional finale role of a sort was both very much with us, immanent, and yet questioned, facing imminent destruction. Jurowski’s clarity paid dividends here, ironically turning the music around to resemble other Berio works more closely than any other performance I can recall. One final Stravinskian lesson learned, then – after which two highly enjoyable encores: The Swingles singing Piazzolla (Libertango) and the LPO and Jurowski rounding off their year-long Stravinsky survey with Circus Polka: for a Young Elephant.

Intermezzo, Garsington Opera, 6 June 2015

Images: Mike Hoban

(sung in English)

Garsington Opera House

Robert Storch – Mark Stone

Christine – Mary Dunleavy
Anna – Ailish Tynan
Franzl – Louis Hynes
Baron Lummer – Sam Furness
Notary – Benjamin Bevan
Notary’s Wife – Sarah Sedgwick
Stroh – Oliver Johnston
Commercial Counsellor – James Cleverton
Legal Counsellor – Gerard Collett
Singer – Barnaby Rea
Fanny – Alice Devine
Marie – Elka Lee-Green
Therese – Charlotte Sutherland
Resi – Anna Sideris

Bruno Ravella (director)

Giles Cadle (designs)
Bruno Poet (lighting)

Garsington Opera Orchestra

Jac van Steen (conductor)

 

Hats off to Garsington for championing once again some criminally neglected Strauss. I overheard someone there opine, ‘Of course, you can understand why it isn’t done very often.’ Well, only if you take as given the increasingly untenable assumptions some ‘major’ opera houses trumpet concerning their audiences – and perhaps not even then. That Birmingham Opera can sell out Stockhausen immediately and that the Royal Opera House – by any standards, a different animal – can sell out operas by Benjamin and Birtwistle puts paid to lazy talk and should put paid to lazy programming, though does so far less often than should be the case. If one takes as one’s core lazy listeners, consequences will follow; if one leads, and especially if one acts upon widespread thirst for modernist repertoire, broadly conceived, other, better consequences will do so. Strauss, it might be countered, is a different matter again, and perhaps he is. But he is hardly unpopular, and if many people have not heard Intermezzo, despite a recent staging at Buxton, then grant them an opportunity such as Garsington has.

An excellent performance was given by the Garsington Orchestra – only once, early in the second act, did I sense a little tiredness – under the baton of Jac van Steen. The conductor’s deep knowledge and understanding of the score, of its post-Ariadne idiom, of its opportunities and challenges had been displayed in my interview with him; it was displayed just as clearly here. Everything was in its place, as it must be; Strauss at his most unsparing allows no room for error. The orchestral interludes put me a little in mind of the ‘closed forms’ of Busoni and Berg, whilst very much retaining their own character. It was perhaps most of all, though, Strauss’s economy, which yet never denies his love of musical proliferation, that shone through. Not a note is wasted; nor was it in performance.

The cast proved persuasive advocates too. Mary Dunleavy’s vocal security was matched to a subtle reading of Christine’s character that extracted her from the realm of patronising, even misogynistic caricature: no mere ‘shrew’ here, but a credible woman of strengths, weaknesses, above all agency. Mark Stone made a powerful impression as her husband, perhaps the closest of all Strauss came to a self-portrait. (The creator of the role wore a mask so as to make him resemble the composer all the more closely. As Norman del Mar observed, this was a ‘striking volte-face after Strauss’s anxieties over the Young Composer in Ariadne’.) One could have taken dictation, verbal as well as notational, from most of his crystal-clear performance: Lied writ large in the best sense. Sam Furnes’’s Baron Lummer offered a well-judged mixture of vocal allure and immaturity of character. Ailish Tynan’s perky Anna proved just the right sort of knowing, informed servant. In a fine company performance, other singers to stand out included Oliver Johnston’s finely sung – and acted – Stroh, Gerald Collett’s equally impressive Legal Counsellor, and Benjamin Bevan’s honourable Notary. Everyone, however, made a considerable contribution.

Bruno Ravella’s production takes the work seriously, on its own terms, and succeeds accordingly. Giles Cadle’s resourceful set moves us in and out of a Garmisch-style villa, modern (to Strauss), without being avant garde. There is always a strong sense of who everyone is, and why he or she is acting in the manner we observe. The card game is, as the conductor observed to me, wonderfully, knowingly realistic; such understanding could hardly be feigned. The crucial element of communication and its speed – the telephone, the telegram, Strauss’s pace of conversation delivery – offered an excellent example of musical performances and production acting as one.

One can speak of the plot being trivial, if one wishes. (I suppose one can speak about anything if one wishes, so that was an especially meaningless claim!) But some of that seems to be snobbery; would we think differently, were these gods, or indeed from another class, ‘higher’ or ‘lower’. In his original Preface, replaced when the score was published, Strauss not unreasonably claimed to break genuine new ground in the variety of everyday life he had brought to the stage; Hindemith and Schoenberg would follow suit in Neues vom Tage and Von heute auf morgen. Still more to the point, though, (high) bourgeois domesticity matters to those involved in it; it certainly matters to the little boy caught at the centre of marital dispute and potentially breakdown, as countless children, sleepless with worry at raised voices downstairs, will tell you. (Young Louis Hynes deserved great credit for his portrayal of that difficult role, here rendered more difficult still.) Now Intermezzo is not essentially ‘about’ that, although I think it is more concerned with it than, say, Elektra is; but a subtle yet perceptible shift in that direction from the production did no harm in opening up the work.

Only one gripe, really: it was a great pity that the opera was sung in English, and that Andrew Porter’s translation was the version used. Given surtitles, there really is no need; Strauss really does not sound right in translation, still more so as here, when odd words remained in German, the contrast jarring. Moreover, accents tended to slide – or at least to slide more noticeably to an English ear. But, as ever with Strauss, in the battle of Wort with Ton, there was little doubt which would emerge victorious. This was a far from insignificant victory over Strauss’s critics, Garsington’s latest estimable contribution to a hero’s after-life.