22 Apr 2018

RICHARD STRAUSS: Elektra

From Opera on Sunday
Christine Goerke as Elektra and Mikhail Petrenko as Orest

Christine Goerke as Elektra and Mikhail Petrenko as Orest Photo: Karen Almond/Metropolitan Opera

Sunday 22 April at 6.00pm on RNZ Concert

Metropolitan Opera 2018 Season

STRAUSS: Elektra

Shortly after conquering the opera world with his scandalous masterpiece Salome, Richard Strauss turned to Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s recent adaptation of Sophocles’s Electra for his next project. The resulting opera is an intense and still-startling work that unites the commanding impact of Greek tragedy with the unsettling insights of early-20th-century Freudian psychology. The drama unfolds in a single act of rare vocal and orchestral power.

Elektra......................... Christine Goerke

Chrysothemis.............. Elze van den Heever

Klytämnestra............... Michaela Schuster

Aegisth........................ Jay Hunter Morris

Orest............................ Mikhail Petrenko

Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra/Yannick Nézet-Séguin (EBU)

The story takes place in Mycenae, Greece, some years after the end of the Trojan War. This mythically resonant era has inspired opera composers for centuries, including Monteverdi, Gluck and Mozart.

Michaela Schuster as Klytämnestra and Christine Goerke as Elektra

Michaela Schuster as Klytämnestra and Christine Goerke as Elektra Photo: Karen Almond/Metropolitan Opera

The orchestra for Elektra is often cited as the largest for any repertory opera. It opens and closes the drama with a crashing motive that represents Agamemnon, Elektra’s father, who even in death dominates the lives of his family.

Elza van den Heever as Chrysothemis

Elza van den Heever as Chrysothemis Photo: Karen Almond/Metropolitan Opera

The score encompasses an astonishing range of musical color: there are moments of sublime lyricism when the characters express tenderness or love, and there is brutal, harsh dissonance when they are at (or beyond) the bounds of sanity.

Related Links:

Synopsis

Psychology of Elektra

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