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There is a special category of German opera--we might call it the repellent masterpiece--in which some works of Richard Strauss are prominent, and
Elektra is perhaps the pinnacle, certainly a unique experience. This production fulfills all the opera's requirements for mastery and repulsion.
Opera frequently deals with dysfunctional families, but the clan of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Elektra, and Orestes stands out even when compared with those of Oedipus or Medea. Deep, burning hatred, a thirst for revenge, a violent distaste for one's nearest and dearest are the driving forces in this work, which is essentially about the imperative of killing Mommy because she has murdered Daddy, who long ago killed Little Sister. Creating a musical masterpiece out of such material was a daunting challenge, and Richard Strauss fulfilled it spectacularly with music that celebrates the powers of darkness. This Vienna State Opera production captures the music's shadowy, muscular essence. --Joe McLellan
Fanfare, Arthur Lintgen, December 3, 2009
The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra is almost inextricably associated with Elektra , and for good reason. There is probably no other orchestra that can play Strauss's amazing and challenging score like they can. The principal DVD competition for this 1989 Vienna State Opera production features Karl Böhm conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in a filmed performance made just before his death. Georg Solti's Decca recording with the Vienna Philharmonic is a justly legendary fusion of sound and performance in service to the music. Claudio Abbado is not particularly known as a Strauss specialist, but any performance of Elektra with the Vienna Philharmonic and a formidable cast like this should surely be a serious contender. Éva Marton may not be primarily known for the lustrous tonal beauty of her voice, but the role of Elektra is ultimately more about power than beauty. And Marton has plenty of power. She is at the top of her game here as she uses her instrument to great effect. This is a powerful vocal performance. Even if Marton does not possess the cutting, laser-like brilliance of Birgit Nilsson, she does not lapse into squally sounds in this taxing role. Brigitte Fassbaender, with her painted face and black robes wrapped in jewels plays Klytämnestra as a wretched woman wracked with guilt. She may have been near the end of her career, but you would hardly know it. Her voice remains musical, perhaps too much so, even in the recitation of her nightmares. I wasn't originally sold on Cheryl Studer as Chrysothemis, but after hearing her in the EMI Wolfgang Sawallisch recording, also with Marton ( Fanfare 31:6), and now here, her lighter and more innately attractive voice works well, especially in the way it contrasts with Marton in Strauss's brutal musical environment. Her histrionic acting is over the top to the point of being sort of silly.
The Vienna Philharmonic is on fire, but Abbado's tempos are slower and his instrumental textures more dense than are Solti's in his shattering Decca recording. In comparison to Solti, Elektra's final dance of death sounds a little sedate here. Harry Kupfer's stark production fits Strauss's expressionistic score well. The stage and background is dark throughout the opera, with any faint light illuminating the performers revealing cold, steely, blue-gray surfaces on a stage dominated by a massive statue of a decapitated Agamemnon with one foot standing on a globe. The stereo sound is outstanding in the way that it captures most of Strauss's raging orchestra. One unfortunate balance problem relegates Klytämnestra's death shout too far into the background to be dramatically effective. Subtitles are available in English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish. The bare-bones booklet contains only an essay on Elektra and brief comments on the cast and production. The DVD competition is formidable. The 1981 film features a frail Böhm just before he died. Böhm's knowledge of Strauss's score is unsurpassed, but his cast of Leonie Rysanek (Elektra), Astrid Varnay (Klytämnestra), and Catarina Legendza (Chrysothemis) cannot compare to this. James Levine's Met production has Nilsson, but the rest of the cast is so-so, and the Met Orchestra in 1981 was not on the same level as the Vienna Philharmonic. On audio CD, Solti with Nilsson in her prime conducts a white-hot Vienna Philharmonic in one of the best-sounding opera recordings ever made. Despite Abbado's somewhat sluggish conducting (at least in comparison to Böhm and Solti), this is the best all-around DVD of Elektra because of its outstanding cast, the Vienna Philharmonic, and the dramatically effective but apparently controversial production, as evidenced by some of the surprising boos during the curtain calls.
