Richard Strauss : Elektra
Coro Gulbenkian
Orchestre de Paris
Esa-Pekka Salonen
I've seen Elektra live three times, with, chronologically, Birgit Nilsson, Gwyneth Jones, and Hildegard Behrens in the title role. So you'll understand if my bar is set pretty high for this piece. However, this was the Aix Festival, and a new Patrice Chéreau production, not to mention the kind of all-star cast you really only get at the most prestigious festivals these days, and even then, the alchemy doesn't always operate. It did this time, fortunately.
Chéreau perhaps represents the archetype of Regietheater to many, but in his productions for the Aix Festival (this is his third, within the last ten years), he has always seemed to me to clear the stage of clutter, and from his work as a theatre director, he bears a great respect for the classics, and Elektra is nothing if not a classic. Yes, it was updated in a sense. Richard Peduzzi, Chéreau's long-time, faithful set designer, has concocted a stark, white courtyard that could as easily be a large, partially fortified farm somewhere in Eastern Europe as an ancient Greek palace, while the modern dress was as drably nondescript as it gets. The sense of a microcosm unbalanced by the almost complete absence of able-bodied men, removed from that particular society by war, was all too clear, and it did not particularly matter which war it might be. The time-of-day lighting scheme thoroughly reinforced the unities of time, place and action. I did find it a bit too dim much of the time, but its purpose was clear enough.
However, where everything suddenly clicked fiercely into place was with the appearance of Clytemnaestra. This was not the screaming harpy one usually sees in productions of Strauss's opera. This was Clytemnaestra the Queen, who killed Agamemnon not just because of an affair with Aegisthus, but because of Agamemnon's sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia, and because of his dishonour of their marriage bed first with Briseis and then with Cassandra. While she resents the dreams that cause her to seek Elektra's help, the anger that fires Elektra is also her own, which she recognises and tries to reach out to, but Elektra cannot see that or respond to it. What had been, up to that point, a good performance, but still allowing some room for distraction, became completely compelling, a hand pressing you inexorably into your seat, immobile until the conclusion, with Elektra lost in a catatonic trance, her sole purpose in life extinguished, while Orestes walks out of the gates, equally lost, to an unknown future, and Chrysothemis calls out bewilderedly after him.
Without a cast up to the demands of Chéreau's vision, it could all have seemed fairly humdrum, but for once, the billing lived up to expectations. Evelyn Herlitzius was an appropriately savage Elektra, wild-eyed and surly, her voice flung fearlessly into the music, strong and vibrant. I would have liked a little more clarity of text (especially considering she's a native German speaker), but it never crossed my mind to be concerned for her vocal production, and that's already half the battle with this role. Adrianne Pieczonka was a bit of a revelation to me as Chrysothemis; the last time I saw/heard her was as Amelia in Simon Boccanegra and I wasn't particularly impressed. Here her voice gleamed, confident and yearning for some kind of loving contact, achingly adrift between a distant mother and an obsessed sister.
Waltraud Meier, stately and regal, was a superb Clytemnaestra, the voice perfectly placed, sure in public, intimate in private with Elektra, crystal clear and utterly focused. Mikhail Petrenko was a rather darker voice than I'm used to as Orest, but still rang out with a rich, bronzed timbre, and the Recognition Scene was, correctly, the emotional heart of the piece, rendered with immense feeling from both Petrenko and Herlitzius. Let's not forget a rather extraordinary line-up of secondary roles; Tom Randle as Aegisthus, Renate Behle as the Overseer, Roberta Alexander as the 5th Maid, Donald McIntyre as the Old Servant, and Franz Mazura as the Tutor. Alexander in particular was in remarkable form, the voice very bright and fresh, especially for her age.
The whole was bound together by a formidable performance from the Orchestre de Paris under Esa-Pekka Salonen, in one of his fairly rare outings into the opera house, and his first encounter with this particular score. Some faintly ragged playing from the horns was more than offset by the attention to detail overall, which could take you from the delicacy of something very close to a string quartet to the overwhelming force of the full band (and this was the 98-strong "reduced" formation favoured by the Vienna State Opera, rather than the full 116-strong original formation). Intense lyricism rubbed shoulders with stamping dissonance, every extreme fully explored, without ever imbalancing, either within the orchestra itself, or with the plateau of singers. Salonen and the orchestra got us through the somewhat slow start, and then blazed through the rest along with the singers to the crushing final chords, and a well-deserved standing ovation.
[Next : 14th July]
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