Newsletter

News about the schedule Personal recommendations Special offers ... Stay well informed!

Subscribe to our newsletter

Subscribe to our Newsletter and receive 25% off your next ticket purchase.

* Mandatory field




Newsletter

Intermezzo – Die Handlung - Deutsche Oper Berlin

Intermezzo - The synopsis

presented by director Tobias Kratzer

back

Intermezzo 24/25

Act I

1st Scene (a) – Before the Husband’s Departure 
The composer and conductor Robert Storch is about to leave for a concert tour. His wife Christine stays behind at home.

1st Scene (b) – In the Dressing Room 
While having her hair done, Christine complains to her maid Anna about being “the wife of a famous man”. 

2nd Scene – At the Toboggan Run 
An open-air accident leads to a consequential encounter: Christine meets young Baron Lummer.

3rd Scene – A Ball at Grundelseewirt 
Christine and Baron Lummer spend several carefree hours together.

4th Scene – Furnished Room at the Notary’s House 
Christine treats Baron Lummer as her protégé, finding a reasonably priced student room for him.

5th Scene – At the Apartment of Frau Storch 
Baron Lummer visits Christine at home. The meeting resembles a series of misunderstandings. Christine craves intimacy; Lummer is after financial support. 

6th Scene – The Baron’s Room at the Notary’s House 
Lummer ponders his relationship with Christine and is visited by his friend Resi. He sends Christine a request for money.

7th Scene – A Snowstorm 
Christine is indignant at Lummer’s requests for money. However, when she opens a letter addressed to her husband, other worries occupy her mind. Robert seems to be having an affair with the sender, “Mieze Maier”. Christine is outraged and decides to leave her husband.

8th Scene – The Child’s Bedroom, illuminated by only a candle 
Christine wants to depart with her son, Franzl. The child, however, is on “Papa’s” side. 

 

Act II

1st Scene – The Skat Round 
During a round of skat with colleagues, Robert Storch receives a message from Christine. He does not understand why she wants to leave him. He knows no one by the name of “Mieze Maier“.

2nd Scene – The Notary’s Office 
Christine wants to file for divorce with a notary. He, however, rejects the commission: “I revere your husband far too much.”

3rd Scene – At the Prater. A Thunderstorm 
A chance encounter with his colleague Stroh sheds light on the cause of the misunderstanding. Stroh confesses that Mieze Maier is his lover, and her letter was only delivered to his colleague Storch because their similarity in name.

4th Scene – The Wife’s Dressing Room, in utter chaos 
While Christine is packing her suitcases to leave, a message arrives, clearing up the misunderstanding. Despite the good news, Christine remains sceptical. 

5th and 6th Scene – The Dining Room, festively decorated 
Robert Storch returns home. Instead of reconciliation, a new argument ensues. Another visit from Baron Lummer offers no way out either. Chrstine and her husband always remain connected: “… this is what one truly calls a happy marriage.”

Translation: Alexa Nieschlag

Enter Onepager
1

slide_title_1

slide_description_1

slide_headline_2
2

slide_title_2

slide_description_2

slide_headline_3
3

slide_title_3

slide_description_3

slide_headline_4
4

slide_title_4

slide_description_4

Create / edit OnePager
22
DEC

Advents-Verlosung: Das 22. Fensterchen

On 7 March 2025, the first part of Tobias Kratzer's Strauss trilogy, ARABELLA, celebrates its revival as part of our ‘Richard Strauss in March’ weeks, with Jennifer Davis as Arabella , Heidi Stober as Zdenka/Zdenko, Thomas Johannes Mayer as Mandryka, Daniel O'Hearn as Matteo and, as in the premiere series, Doris Soffel and Albert Pesendorfer as the Waldner couple. Today we are giving away our DVD, which will not be available in shops until 14 February 2025. We would like to express our heartfelt thanks to NAXOS for giving us the very special opportunity to put ARABELLA in our lottery pot for you almost eight weeks before the official sales launch.

In today's Advent Calendar window, we are giving away two DVDs of ARABELLA – a lyrical comedy in three acts by Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. If you would like to win one of the two DVDs, please write an e-mail with the subject ‘The 22nd window’ to advent@deutscheoperberlin.de.

Vienna, circa 1860. The financially strapped Count Waldner is lodging with his family in a Viennese hotel. His only path to solvency is for him to secure an advantageous marriage for one of his two daughters – and the family can only afford to present Arabella, the eldest, in the upper circles of society. To conceal the family’s indigence, the parents have raised Zdenka as a boy, dressing her accordingly. Arabella is not short of suitors but has resolved to wait for ‘Mr Right’. When Mandryka, an aristocrat from a distant region, arrives, he and Arabella are instantly smitten. Arabella only asks to be able to bid farewell to her friends and suitors at the Fasching ball that evening. At the ball, Arabella says goodbye to her admirers. There is also the young officer Matteo, with whom Zdenka is secretly in love and with whom she has formed a friendship under the guise of her disguise as a boy. Matteo, however, desires Arabella and is distraught when he realises the hopelessness of his love. Zdenka devises a plan: she fakes a letter from Arabella in which she promises Matteo a night of love together. But instead she wants to wait for him herself in the darkness of the hotel room. Mandryka learns of Arabella's alleged infidelity and goes to the hotel with the ball guests to surprise Arabella in flagrante delicto. Arabella, innocent of this, is initially shocked and saddened by Mandryka’s suspicions but forgives him when the mix-up is revealed for what it is. The two agree to marry, as do Zdenka and Matteo.

Richard Strauss’s orchestral richness and opulence coupled with the period Viennese setting of the work led to ARABELLA being falsely pigeonholed as a light-hearted comedy of errors from its 1933 premiere onwards. In the estimation of Tobias Kratzer, however, who triumphed at the Deutsche Oper with his production of Alexander von Zemlinsky’s THE DWARF, this final collaboration between Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal marks a collision of two world views: the traditional roles of men and women on the one hand – as expressed in Arabella’s famous solo “Und du sollst mein Gebieter sein” – and a modern idea of social interaction on the other – as illustrated by Zdenka with her questioning of gender-based identities. Here, Kratzer turns the spotlight on this disunity between the various character portrayals in ARABELLA and explores these role-specific tensions on a continuum stretching from 19th-century Vienna to the present day. In the category of stage design, Manuel Braun, Jonas Dahl and Rainer Sellmaier were honoured with the renowned German Theatre Award DER FAUST 2023 for this production.

In this recording, under the baton of Sir Donald Runnicles, you will experience Albert Pesendorfer, Doris Soffel, Sara Jakubiak, Elena Tsallagova, Russell Braun, Robert Watson, Thomas Blondelle, Kyle Miller, Tyler Zimmerman, Hye-Young Moon, Lexi Hutton, Jörg Schörner and others, as well as the chorus and orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin. The performances on 18 and 23 March 2023 were recorded by rbb Kultur and Naxos for this DVD.

We would like to thank the Naxos label for the great collaboration over the past few years, which documents recordings of DER ZWERG, DAS WUNDER DER HELIANE, FRANCESCA DA RIMINI, DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN, DER SCHATZGRÄBER, DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NÜRNBERG and ANTIKRIST. Richard Strauss' ARABELLA and INTERMEZZO will be released in the course of 2025.


Closing date: 22 December 2024. The winners will be informed by email on 23 December 2024. The DVDs will then be sent by post. There is no right of appeal.