The first performance of the unabridged 'Elektra' enthralls the audience, Music & Vision February 8

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Sheer Tension
The first performance of the unabridged 'Elektra'
enthralls the audience,
related by GIUSEPPE PENNISI



Stéphane Lissner, longtime director general of the Festival International de Art Lyrique in Aix en Provence and now superintendent and artistic director of La Scala, considers Richard Strauss' Elektra as the best opera of the nineteenth century. Even if this is not a universally shared opinion -- among Strauss' work for the stage, your reviewer considers Die Frau ohne Schatten as the absolute and unrivaled masterpiece -- the 'tragedy in one act' about the gruesome events in the Kingdom of the Mycenae is a milestone in opera history.

Very few are aware that the Strauss-Hofmannsthal tragedy has never been performed unabridged until very recently. In 1909, at its première in Dresden, a few verses of the text (and the relevant music) were cut because their explicit sexual references were considered unbecoming. Indeed as late as in 1968, in the Golden Encyclopedia of Music, Normal Llod calls even the 'abridged' text 'too lurid'. For the first time, the unabridged Elektra was staged last summer at the Tyrolean Festival in Erl, a small village 80km from Munich and 80km from Salzburg -- but seldom visited by music critics and by an international audience. Now, the unabridged Elektra is touring Northern Italy thanks to a joint venture by the theatres of Bolzano, Modena, Piacenza and Ferrara. The production is so successful that the tour may be extended to Reggio Emilia and Ravenna. In parallel, another production of unabridged Elektra will be on stage in Catania from 18 to 28 February 2010 and may reach Palermo next year.

It is an important event for several reasons. First, none of the theatres in the tour is a 'major' and highly subsidized 'lyric foundation'. They are small 'provincial' theatres seating five hundred to eight hundred and generally offering no more than four or five popular items every year, often with a semi-professional orchestra and chorus. Musicologist Carlo Vitali recalls that 'until the 1960s, "provincial theaters" were the backbone of Italy's operatic culture' but the 'pattern was nearly lost during the following decades, as growing travel opportunities on one side, and multimedia diffusion of grand opera productions on the other, compelled many a minor house to shut up shop'. Now, under the aegis of local councilors for culture and education, they put a premium on artistic quality rather than on business, albeit within the constraint of limited budgets. None of the theatres mentioned above has an orchestra pit for the 115 players required by the Elektra score. So for all of them, this winter it is the first time they're taking up Strauss' impervious score. Nonetheless, they have provided the best production available so far in Italy in this lackluster 2009-2010 opera season.

Second, the unabridged is far from lurid, but its sexually explicit text is essential to fully understand the Freudian overtones of the tragedy and the dazzling excitement of musical forces advancing beyond even Wagnerian lines. Third, under Gustav Kuhn's baton, two highly professional orchestras were amalgamated: the Haydn Orchestra of Trento and Bolzano and the Orchestra of Emilia-Romagna. With a strength of 115, the orchestra was not in the pit but on the stage, on the steps of a semi-circular auditorium (looking like a Greek theatre) with each element or group of elements visible to the audience. Fourth, the tragedy was staged right at the front of the stage on two levels: Elektra's claustrophobic room at the lower level and the empty Royal Palace at the upper level.

Under Kuhn's baton, the huge orchestra made the unabridged Elektra shattering: more grandiose and more savage than most performances I have listened to in the last few years. In keeping with the harsh, angular idiom, the musical phrases are mostly abrupt, but they blossom out into real cantilena whenever gentler feelings break through. The harmonies weave and clash with dissonances and the various leit-motifs are sculptured so well that one can grasp them at a first hearing.

Agamemnon's motif opens and closes the tragedy (even if the last verse is 'Orest ... Orest!'); at the beginning is a passionate accusation, at the end is an inflexible threat addressed to future development of the complicated family. In between, it recurs in Elektra's monologues. It is a harsh heroic theme set against a fervent expansive melody (Elektra's love for her father) and the glowing melodies of Chrysothemis' womanly feelings. Elektra's main objective is revenge, indeed a bloody revenge, but she is also capable of gentle emotions, as in the scene of her recognition of Orest. The third protagonist is Klytaemnestra, tormented soul. Her entrance is announced by savage, driving music. The gruesome reality of her emotions is revealed in his confrontation with Elektra, carefully revealed by the details of the score.

In this production, Elena Popovskaya alternates with Anna Katharina Behnke as Elektra, Anna Maria Chiuri with Mihaela Binder-Ungureanu as Klitaemnstra and Maria Hundeling with Michela Sburlaty as Chrysothemis. They are young and both vocally and scenically perfect in their impervious roles. Wieland Satter is a passionate Orest. Richard Decker a tired Aegisth. A cast any major theatre should strive for.

On 30 January 2010 in Piacenza, the audience was enthralled. There were many young people in the theatre. After two hours of sheer tension came fifteen minutes of curtain calls and accolades.

Copyright © 8 February 2010 Giuseppe Pennisi,
Rome, Italy

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RICHARD STRAUSS

ELEKTRA

ITALY

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