Strauss’s Take on the Life of Strauss

Domesticity and rocky relationships appear to be the twin themes of New York City Opera’s fall season: after the heavy weather of Leonard Bernstein’s “Quiet Place,” built around a dysfunctional family reunited by a funeral, comes a revival of “Intermezzo,” Richard Strauss’s airy comedy about, well, Richard Strauss.

Leon Major’s 1999 production, based on the staging Mr. Major created for Glimmerglass Opera in 1990, returned to the stage of what is now the David H. Koch Theater on Sunday afternoon.
Reviving a Strauss curio might not seem like an obvious choice for a City Opera repositioning itself as a radical trailblazer. But then it can be hard to remember just how unusual a proposition the opera was in 1924, when it had its premiere in Dresden, and how unusual it remains. Rather than deity, royalty or the other stuff of operatic convention, Strauss based “Intermezzo,” for which he wrote the libretto, on an episode from his own married life.
Realistically shaded relationships were nothing new to the creator of “Der Rosenkavalier” and “Die Frau Ohne Schatten.” Composers figured prominently in “Ariadne auf Naxos,” which predated “Intermezzo,” and “Capriccio,” which came later. Strong female characters were a Straussian specialty. An earlier tone poem, the “Symphonia Domestica,” was based on his bourgeois homebody bliss.
In “Intermezzo” Strauss brought those strands together in a thinly disguised dramatization of a marital conflict born of mistaken identity. He represents himself with Robert Storch, a successful composer forced to tour to shore up the domestic bottom line. But the opera’s real protagonist, Storch’s wife, Christine, is a brilliantly realized, boldly nuanced portrait of Strauss’s difficult wife, Pauline. Christine chides and rattles Storch as only a genuinely devoted wife can; Strauss limns her personality with an exacting detail facilitated by experience and love.
In the soprano Mary Dunleavy City Opera has an ideal Christine: one with appealing tone, ample volume and range, sufficient endurance to meet the role’s demands and an ability to shift on a dime from doting to needling, admirable to near atrocious. City Opera is presenting the work in Andrew Porter’s English translation; Ms. Dunleavy’s enunciation and projection make the projected titles nearly unnecessary.
The baritone Nicholas Pallesen, an outstanding Falstaff for the Juilliard Opera last year, brought warmth and patience to his portrayal of Storch. Andrew Bidlack, a tenor making his company debut, sang brightly and sweetly as Christine’s opportunistic young friend, the Baron Lummer. Jessica Klein, a soprano, was bright and sympathetic as Anna, Christine’s maid, confidante and punching bag. The supporting cast was uniformly satisfying.
Clean-lined sets by Andrew Jackness and splendid costumes by Martha Munn bolstered the appeal of a lengthy yet briskly paced presentation. A busy bustle of supernumeraries — shuffling, skating, changing sets — could distract during Strauss’s opulent instrumental interludes but suited the blithe tone of Mr. Major’s conception.
The orchestra struggled, at times achingly, with Strauss’s knotty lines and luxuriant textures. Still, George Manahan’s conducting made everything stick, and perhaps the playing will rise to the level of the singing and acting during this production’s run.