Intermezzo

Christoph Waltz to direct Renee Fleming's Covent Garden farewell

So, the rumour was true. Oscar winner and Kommissar Rex guest star Christoph Waltz will direct a new Rosenkavalier at the Royal Opera House in 2016. Renee Fleming is to play the Marschallin in her Covent Garden farewell, with Andris Nelsons conducting. Whether Waltz has secretly auditioned Placido Domingo for the role of Baron Ochs is not clear.

The production, Waltz's first, will debut at the Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp on 15 December 2013, where Dmitri Jurowski will conduct a cast that includes Christiane Karg as Sophie, Maria Bengtsson as the Marschallin, Stella Doufexis as Octavian and Albert Pesendorfer as Ochs.

Oscar winner to direct at Covent Garden?

Who'll be telling Renee Fleming what to do with her hands in her final Covent Garden performance?

The most intriguing rumour circulated in this month's Opera magazine is that Christoph Waltz is to direct a new Rosenkavalier at the Royal Opera House in 2016-17, where Renee will play the Marschallin in her Covent Garden farewell.

The Oscar-winning star of Inglourious Basterds doesn't appear to have directed anything before, apart from an obscure TV movie. But he studied singing and opera in his native Vienna before turning to acting, and he's a keen operagoer.

Years before his Oscar, Waltz proved himself as the finest of actors with a guest appearance in the finest of Austrian TV series, Kommissar Rex. His role as an evil doll-maker who dresses up women and moulds them to his will can only help with his Renee-wrangling. Watch him in the clip above, and check out the one below if you want to know how it ends (and catch a glimpse of Rex).