Opera
Elektra
Richard Strauss (1864 – 1949)
Tragedy in one act
Sung in German, with surtitles.
Libretto: Hugo von Hofmannsthal, based on the tragedy by Sophocles
World premiere: 1909 in Dresden
Catherine Foster
Photo: Sven-Helge Czichy
Catherine Foster
Photo: Sven-Helge Czichy
Catherine Foster
Photo: Sven-Helge Czichy
Dalia Schaechter
Photo: Sven-Helge Czichy
Young Doo Park, Catherine Foster
Photo: Sven-Helge Czichy
Catherine Foster, Erika Sunnegårdh
Photo: Sven-Helge Czichy
Catherine Foster, Young Doo Park
Photo: Sven-Helge Czichy
Aaron Cawley, Catherine Foster
Photo: Sven-Helge Czichy
Dalia Schaechter, Catherine Foster
Photo: Sven-Helge Czichy
Erika Sunnegårdh
Photo: Sven-Helge Czichy
Catherine Foster
Photo: Sven-Helge Czichy
Dalia Schaechter, Catherine Foster
Photo: Sven-Helge Czichy
Catherine Foster, Erika Sunnegårdh
Photo: Sven-Helge Czichy
Catherine Foster, Erika Sunnegårdh
Photo: Martin Kaufhold
Young Doo Park, Erika Sunnegårdh, Catherine Foster
Photo: Sven-Helge Czichy
Celeste Haworth, Marta Wryk, Katharina Konradi, Stella An, Ruth Staffa
Photo: Martin Kaufhold
Catherine Foster, Erika Sunnegårdh
Photo: Martin Kaufhold
Ensemble, Chor
Photo: Martin Kaufhold
In 1906, Strauss embarked on what proved to become an extremely fruitful collaboration with the Viennese writer Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Despite his misgivings about successfully bringing such a complex female figure to the stage once more (“Salome”, based on the play by Oscar Wilde, had premiered very recently in 1905), Strauss’ vision for “Elektra” resulted in a more radical creation than the last one. He said of the opera: “The wish to set this demonic, ecstatic image of sixth-Century Greece up in opposition to the Romanized copies of Winckelmann and the humanism of Goethe triumphed over my caution, and so Elektra turned out to be even more intense in the concentration of its structure and the violence of its intensification”.
First adapted for the stage by Sophocles, the Greek myth from Homer’s “Iliad” finds a distinctive resonance in Hofmannsthal’s 1903 libretto, honing in on Freud’s hysteria studies, the feelings of aggression towards coming world war, and the waning of Austria’s Habsburg Empire. To support the overwhelming emotional content of the opera, Strauss uses an orchestra of immense virtuosity, yet without compromising tonality and his trademark lush orchestration. With his turn-of-the-century “Elektra”, Strauss set a clear benchmark for everything that followed, while also representing – simultaneously somehow – a memory of a lost world, inherent in all of us.