Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Heftig, June 20, 2009
Previously available on an Image Entertainment DVD before falling out of the catalog for some time, the 1989 Kupfer/Abbado Vienna production makes a welcome reappearance under the Arthaus Musik imprint. The dominant image in Harry Kupfer's stage picture is an enormous statue of Agamemnon with one foot bearing down on a globe. The statue has been decapitated by Aegisth and his followers, and the head lies a short distance away, nearer the rear of the stage. Ropes are attached to the statue's body in preparation for the remainder of it to be leveled. In this very physical production, in which the principals often grab hold of and struggle with one another, the ropes play an important part in the choreography: in solos, singers will grip one or two ropes and swing from them or entangle themselves; in the great mother/daughter duet, we keep expecting Elektra to use one either to bind or to strangle Klytämnestra. Elektra only infrequently moves away from the base of the statue, remaining figuratively in her father's lap (or shadow?), to which she draws others: her sister, her hated mother and stepfather, her brother. This video production has been criticized elsewhere for its "Stygian darkness," but on this new reissue, it looks considerably better than its detractors would suggest: black levels are strong, colors vivid, stage action clear.
A mixture of cheers and loud boos greeted Maestro Claudio Abbado and the production team at final curtain, after the predictable ovations for the singers. While I can see why the staging may not have been to everyone's taste, the booing of Abbado I find unconscionable. From the orchestral standpoint, this immediately leapt to a position near the top of the list of ELEKTRAs I have heard, and that list includes the famous recorded interpretations of Solti, Karajan, Böhm, and Sawallisch. As was the case with Abbado's LOHENGRIN and KHOVANSHCHINA for the Vienna State Opera that same season (both also available on DVD, the LOHENGRIN with one of the same singers), the sonorities are ravishing and the textures stupendous in their clarity. The 1981 Götz Friedrich film conducted by the elderly Karl Böhm was as gripping a slow performance of ELEKTRA as anyone could want. This one is as gripping but at the opposite pole -- Abbado's swifter, lighter, more lyrical approach shaves a good seven minutes off the opera's running time, but makes its points with no less force. Where Böhm lumbers (quite effectively), Abbado sprints.
Abbado and Kupfer were fortunate in their casting, which also compares favorably with that of the Friedrich film. Eva Marton was not as interesting an actress as Leonie Rysanek was, but she had a genuine Elektra voice (Rysanek, of course, was a celebrated Chrysothemis who only dared the title role under studio conditions), and her performance, if a trifle blunt, is an impressive display at the levels of amplitude and stamina. Cheryl Studer has done little better than this gorgeously intoned and intelligently phrased Chrysothemis, and is in a different league from her rather blowsy counterpart in the Friedrich film, Catarina Ligendza. Brigitte Fassbaender's distinctive timbre can be savored as Klytämnestra, and she cannot be accused of singing badly or of failing to throw herself into it; but even allowing that what she is doing is scaled to the theater (a large one, at that), and allowing that one expects a certain amount of histrionic frenzy from a Klytämnestra, she goes over the top by some margin. Still, she is closer to her vocal prime than was Astrid Varnay for Friedrich/Böhm. Franz Grundheber, on the other hand, is a vocally and dramatically splendid Orest, and James King a luxury-class Aegisth -- one does not often encounter a distinguished former Siegmund in this part, so often squawked out by reedy character tenors. The smaller parts (maids and attendants, etc.) are stylishly done. The subtitling and the video direction (the latter by Brian Large) could hardly be bettered.
For its vocally prodigal ensemble alone, this would be an essential addition to the Strauss DVD library. As noted above, it has considerably more going for it than that, being shaped eloquently and seductively from the pit and featuring a production that, at the very least, is unlikely to bore.
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2.0 out of 5 stars
Warning!, July 27, 2009
While I agree with the previous reviewer that this is a truly stupendous performance of Elektra, I am obliged to note that my copy of this DVD had a very serious technical problem: At about the half-way mark of the opera, the audio track started to become slightly out-of-sync with the picture, and, as it progressed, totally out-of-sync. The second half of the film was unwatchable, as by then the singers' mouths were opening a full second after the note sounded on the audio track. I cannot image that no one else noticed this, but I can also not imagine that it could have been a problem specifically with my equipment (which is fine) or with my particular copy of the DVD (all DVDs are exact copies of each other).
Please be warned, and leave a note in reply to this review if you have the same problem.
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