Elektra
Opera in One (1) Act by Richard Strauss
Libretto in German by Hugo von Hofmannsthal
First performance: Dresden, Germany (1909)
Eva Marton, Cheryl Studer, Brigitte Fassbaender
Vienna State Opera and Orchestra
Claudio Abbado, conductor
A real shocker when it first premiered in 1909, Strauss's Elektra continues to have the same effect on modern audiences, as this performance in eighties shows. The jeers/boos mixed with the enthusiastic applause at the close clearly divides the audience.
Strauss crafted an opera out of a difficult material and Hofmannsthal retold the story more or less in terms of modern pyschology: the bloody lust for revenge.
The classic Greek legend first outlined by Homer and raised to an unforgettable tragedy by Sophocles deals with a family that is bent on killing each other. Klytaemnestra helped by her lover Aegisth, has secured the murder of her husband, King Agamemnon, and now is afraid that her guilt will be discovered by her children, Elektra, Chrysothemis, and their banished brother Orestes.
Elektra, who is the personification of the passionate lust for vengeance, tries to persuade her timid sister to kill their mother, Klytaemnestra and stepfather, Aegisth. Before the plan is carried out, Orestes, who had been reported as dead, arrives and, upon being told the truth by Elektra, determines upon revenge for his father's death. He kills Klytaemnestra and Aegisth; Elektra, her thirst for vengeance satisfied, under the spell of a blood-madness, dances, beginning weirdly, increasing to a frenzy, and ending in her collapse in front of her horror-stricken attendants.
The gloomy perverse madness that permeates the whole story and the countless twists, crawls and spineless convolutions about the characters, lends a frightening raison d'etre to the story.
Strauss employs dissonance and chromaticism to create the desired eerie effect in this dreadful music-drama. Along with Mahler in symphonic music, he is the successor to Wagner in opera. The vocal resources are utilized only at the service of the drama: the singing voices are totally lost, there's hardly any melody you can whistle to as you make your way out of the theatre.
This outing by the Vienna State Opera is controversial- booed and jeered after the curtain closed down. Maybe because an opera about mad women won't make people feel good about themselves, it's actually the stuff nightmares are made of. The scene where a female sacrificial victim, as an offering to the deities, is being impaled and left to hang in all its gory details so that Klytaemnestra's nightmares will disappear leaves a lasting, horrifying memory to the audience.
Abbado handles the difficult score masterfully. True, the orchestration overwhelms and overpowers the singers, too loud in some sections, but I think Strauss wanted it this way- the atmospheric music reflects the inner, psychological struggle engulfing the characters. The music, drama, the text- they all serve the intent of the opera.
This is clearly a difficult opera to appreciate. But if you stick to it and allow yourself to be immersed in the story, the viewing experience is actually very rewarding.
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