"One long mad scene"

[muckefuck]

My only misgiving about opening the season with Elektra is that I was worried it would be a tough act to follow. Strauss is one of my favourite opera composers, particularly when he's collaborating with Hofmannsthal, and who better to turn to for good drama than Aeschylus? Reviews had been uniformly positive and Nuphy was practically giddy with anticipation. By the same token, of course, he was worried about overselling it. But in the end, I can't blame him for the fact that I only liked it when I hoped to love it.

The only singer in the cast I hadn't heard before, Christine Goerke, was the one with the hardest job of the night. Elektra spends the entire evening on stage and most of the time she is singing. Loudly. Wagner's got nothin' on the size of this orchestra; at times, the music is overpowering in its loudness. But to Goerke's great credit, she never loses the upper hand against it. She also knows how to properly pace herself. When he voice weakens at the end, it's acting, not exhaustion.

This an opera which takes one of the less attractive aspects of soprano voices to me--their tendency toward screechiness--and turns it into a feature. When the curtain goes up, Elektra is lurking on the steps of the palace screaming bloody murder--literally. She spends so much of the opera doing this that the ear soon adjusts, to the point where it's more disturbing when she stops. The one scene I actually found chilling was Elektra's meeting with Aegisthus, who scents something foul behind her too-friendly overtures.

The rest of the time, I found myself entertained but uninvolved. I enjoyed all aspects of the production--the stunning set design (you'd swear that gateway was constructed from actual concrete), the accomplished vocal work, the robust orchestration, the powerful score. But I never felt caught up in the drama. What really happens in the end? Elektra scolds everyone in sight--the maids, her mother, and her sister, who she tries and fails to recruit as an accomplice to her revenge. Her brother then shows up and manages that bit. There's a clever bit at the very conclusion which makes the whole plot very legible as a political allegory, but my appreciation of that was more intellectual than emotional.

Maybe it was just the mood I was in? I was fairly well-rested, though, despite being kept up late by the Cardinal's victory the night before. I guess the simulated tragedy of some crazy Greek woman simply couldn't compare next to the real drama of a struggling World Championship team coming back from a crushing deficit to win an elimination game on the road?

Comments

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

"AGA-MEEEEM-NON! AGA-MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEM-NOOOOOON!"

[bunj.livejournal.com]

I can say that I got caught up in it. I think it's hard to be sympathetic towards Elektra, and that's part of the point. In that way it's very daring. Even her brother, who's on board with the whole revenge thing, is a little taken aback by his crazy sister. To some extent, I think this opera is more of an intellectual than an emotional exercise. The playbill made a big deal about how Hofmannsthal was influenced by Freud, but I think the whole opera works as a study of how everyone affected by the murder (including the murderers) is dealing with it: Klytemnestra feels rotten inside, Elektra is obsessed, Chrysothemis wants to bring new life into the world, etc. That's what grabbed me (plus the great music).