The tension between a high-flying artistic existence and down-to-earth middle-class life in the person of the composer Richard Strauss was the theme of the 2011 Garmisch-Partenkirchen Richard Strauss Festival. The musical highlight of the festival was the concert performance of Strauss’s opera Intermezzo (1924) by the Munich Radio Orchestra under Ulf Schirmer. Brigitte Fassbaender, artistic director of the Festival, was present on the stage – in many minor speaking roles and also as a skat player.