Richard Strauss - ElektraWiener Philharmoniker, Salzburg Festspiele, 2010
Daniele Gatti, Nikolaus Lehnhoff, Iréne Theorin, Waltraud Meier, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Robert Gambill, René Pape, Oliver Zwarg
Arthaus
The 2010 production of Elektra for the Salzburg Festspiele is an impressive production, Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s staging as intense and claustrophobic as a staging of Strauss’ opera ought to be. In addition, this production also benefits from a superlative cast including Iréne Theorin, Waltraud Meier, Eva-Maria Westbroek and René Pape, with Daniele Gatti conducting the Wiener Philharmoniker. It doesn’t come much better than this and it does live up to expectations ...unless you already have a strong preference for another production.
Unsurprisingly, for a director like Lehnhoff working with such an opera, the stage setting is a reflection of the internal torment of Elektra, fixated as she is on the death of her father Agamemnon and the desire for vengeance against his murderers, her mother Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. She’s waiting on her brother Orestes to exact that vengeance for her, but, hearing of his death from her sister Chrysothemis, she prepares to carry out the foul deed herself. Lehnhoff envisages the tempestuous fluctuations of Elektra’s state of mind as a grey barren landscape, undulating and tilted, full of fractures and chasms from which horrors torment her and into which she is about to drop into at any moment. It’s reminiscent of his 1999 stage setting for Wagner’s Parsifal, forcing one to draw interesting comparisons between Wagner’s score for that opera and Strauss’, the themes being similar in respect of Elektra in an eternal state of suffering and torment seeking release or purification.
If the stage setting is highly effective in this respect, it’s impact is somewhat lessened by the lack of wide-shots to take in the whole stage, the filming for television focussing for the most part on close-ups of Iréne Theorin’s fixed mask of madness, which is powerful, but limiting and not quite so effective as what is evoked by the stage set as a whole, and by her position alongside the other characters within that space, since Lehnhoff is very considered about the movement and placement of characters in relation to one another. Fortunately, there is much more expressed in this opera through the score and the singing than through the acting, and here Theorin is terrific, cutting an imposing figure vocally and through her physical presence that dictates the whole tone of the piece. Elektra is a notoriously difficult role for a singer, Theorin having to sing pretty much for an hour and a half without break in the one-act opera, and she rises to the challenge, seeming to grow in strength and intensity right up to the devastating conclusion.
The other singers likewise live up to expectations. René Pape, as you would expect is a strong Orestes, even if he lacks the necessary dramatic qualities here. Westbroek sometimes seems to be danger of going a little shrill and harsh, but shows nevertheless fine control and manages to remain a lyrical Chrysothemis, contrasting well with Theorin’s Elektra. Theorin is also well-pitted against Waltraud Meier, but sparks don’t fly as they might between Elektra and Clytemnestra, the production here finding a sense of deep mutual like-mother-like-daughter recognition in the two figures, both in the nature of their own internal conflict and in the depths that they are prepared to sink to. It’s an interesting variation on the mythological relationship, but it doesn’t capture the fullest extent of the conflict within of their relationship that is a little more "complex" (sorry!) and expressed with greater precision in the discordance of Richard Strauss’ score.
Although it’s hard to justify a preference for Linda Watson and Jane Henschel over Theorin and Meier, Watson’s acting in particular being limited to the adoption of a haughty expression that is no match whatsoever for the brooding anguish of Theorin’s interpretation, the 2010 Baden-Baden production is sung and played terrifically well with a striking staging, and I feel that Christian Thielemann’s conducting brings out the dynamism in the opera and an edge that is missing here. That’s a personal preference however, just as others might equally prefer the Karl Böhm version, since otherwise there’s little to fault about the performances, staging or conducting of this fine production.
Other than the predominance of close-ups, there’s little to fault with its presentation on Blu-ray either, the opera looking and sounding terrific in High Definition. Audience applause at the start and bows at the end have been eliminated, and I rather liked the dramatic integrity this gave the opera. Subtitles are in English, French, Spanish and Italian, but no German. Other than trailers for other releases, there are no extra features and only a brief essay and a synopsis in the booklet.
