Elektra (captain)

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Elektra is a verse drama by the German Nobel Prize winner for literature Gerhart Hauptmann , which was composed from August 1942 to February 1945 and premiered on November 10, 1947 in the Kammerspiele of the Deutsches Theater Berlin under the direction of Heinz Wolfgang Litten . The one-act play - part 3 of the Atriden tetralogy - premiered on a theater evening, together with part 2 - Agamemnon's death - on the same stage.

Gerhart Hauptmann's model was the murder of Clytemnestra by her son Orestes , the second part of the trilogy Orestie des Aeschylus . Elektra incites her brother Orestes to murder their mother, Queen Clytemnestra . The “relentless fate tragedy” of the first and second parts of the tetralogy is repeated in this third part with “uninterrupted ruling determination”.

Gerhart Hauptmann on a painting by Lovis Corinth from 1900

content

In the Argolida , in the Demeter temple hidden in the mountains near Mycenae : Orestes, pursued by his mother Clytemnestra, wants revenge. The queen ruling over Mycenae has her husband - Orest's father Agamemnon - "ruthlessly and assassinate from the world". Orestes, expelled from the kingdom by his mother, comes home from afar and asks his friend, the loyal subordinate and companion of Pylades , whether his sister Elektra is still alive. At that point she appears and urgently recommends that the newcomers turn back immediately. Because the place is "stinkingly washed over by abyssal waters". These would bring death. In addition, the sister shows her brother Orestes that double-edged ax, glaring with blood, which is still lying there and with which the mother had killed her father. In addition, Elektra continues, Orestes is standing on the spot where Kassandra was murdered with the sword by Aigisthus , the courtier of the mother. The stream of blood from Kassandra's fatal wound turned Elektra into a seer, the latter claims.

Pylades wants to free his childhood sweetheart Elektra; renews his application. Elektra replies negatively: "Nothing may pull me away from the bloody judicial office." After her bloody act, the mother had locked the daughter in. Elektra was able to escape and has been in the decaying Demeter temple ever since. She had burned the father's body. Now she hands over the hatchet to the brother and tells him to matricide. Orestes, who actually wanted revenge, is torn between two; calls the sister a "terrible woman". The three of them hide when two pedestrians approach.

Queen Clytemnestra and Aigisthos seek shelter from a storm in the Demeter temple. Clytemnestra does not recognize the place. Pylades emerges from cover. Aigisthus plays himself as king of the Argolida. Pylades has to contradict: Orestes is rightly entitled to the title. The two fighters beat each other with swords. When Clytemnestra stops and still doesn't know where she has got, Elektra steps forward and gives the mother a taste of her visionary potency:

“This is the holy place where the greatest
died innocently in Hellas ; his holy tomb
and the cursed tomb a wife,
which was his and slew her master. "

The mother explains that she did everything right because she killed a daughter murderer. Pylades has to correct: Iphignie "lives as a priestess of the cruel goddess Hecate in Tauris ".

Elektra gets down to business; wants to strangle the mother. Orestes, still with the ax in hand, stands by. Aigisthos tries to wrest the murder tool from him, but Elektra takes it. Clytemnestra, certain of her royal power, wants to have all three conspirators locked up.

Orestes demands accountability. The mother is lying; denies the father's murder. In a sudden change of heart, she wants to hand over the kingdom to her son. "King" Aigisthus, appointed by Clytemnestra, does not participate. When he wants to beat Orestes, he is judged by Pylades with the sword. Electra's applause follows: Pylades has become a man.

What kind of two children does Clytemnestra have? She can't believe it, attacks Orestes and chokes him. The son kills the mother with the ax.

reception

  • 1954: Fiedler compares Hauptmann's Orestes with Oreste Sartes in Die Flies from 1943. In contrast to Orestes, Oreste acts out of conviction.
  • 1984 Sprengel writes that Clytemnestra falls victim to a Hamlet figure. She is killed “in the same cultic source room” in which she previously killed. Orestes only kills his mother after he has been encouraged by his sister, supported by his friend and attacked by his mother.
  • 1998: Santini: Gerhart Hauptmann writes from the perspective of 1944, is dominated by the “feeling of approaching death” and the “horror of this world”. Furthermore, Santini complains that the recognition scene Elektra and Orestes is “hardly dramatic” and that Electra's “demonic hysteria” and Orest's “complete instability” are Gerhart Hauptmann's invention.

literature

Book editions

  • Agamemnon's death. Elektra. Tragedies, the Atrid Tetralogy, part two and three. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 1948
Output used:
  • Elektra. Tragedy. P. 441–472 in Gerhart Hauptmann: Selected dramas in four volumes. Vol. 4,543 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1952

Secondary literature

  • The atrid tetralogy . P. 76–82 in: Gerhart Hauptmann: Selected dramas in four volumes. Vol. 1. With an introduction to the dramatic work of Gerhart Hauptmann by Hans Mayer . 692 pages. Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1952
  • Gerhard Stenzel (Ed.): Gerhart Hauptmann's works in two volumes. Volume II. 1072 pages. Verlag Das Bergland-Buch, Salzburg 1956 (thin print), pp. 1063-1064
  • Elektra . P. 113–117 in Ralph Fiedler (* 1926 in Berlin-Röntgen ): The late dramas of Gerhart Hauptmann. Attempt at an interpretation. 152 pages. Bergstadtverlag Wilhelm Gottlieb Korn , Munich 1954
  • The atrid tetralogy . P. 247–263 in Peter Sprengel : Gerhart Hauptmann. Epoch - work - effect. 298 pages. CH Beck, Munich 1984 (Beck's elementary books), ISBN 3-406-30238-6
  • Elektra (1947) . P. 244–245 in: Friedhelm Marx : Gerhart Hauptmann . Reclam, Stuttgart 1998 (RUB 17608, Literature Studies series). 403 pages, ISBN 3-15-017608-5
  • Daria Santini: Gerhart Hauptmann between modernity and tradition. New perspectives on the Atriden tetralogy. Translated from the Italian by Benjamin Büttrich. 172 pages. Verlag Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1998 (Diss. University of Pisa 1995, publications of the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Gesellschaft, vol. 8). ISBN 3-503-03792-6

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ In August 1942 Gerhart Hauptmann had chosen the working title “Das Totenopfer” (Santini, p. 75). He wrote the final version from October 6, 1943 to January 11, 1944 (Santini, p. 153, penultimate entry). The author had planned a revision in February 1945, but then did not carry it out (Santini, p. 76 center).
  2. ↑ Heinz Wolfgang Litten (born June 14, 1905 Halle (Saale) ; † August 24, 1955 in East Berlin ), actor and director, 1935/36 senior stage director at the Stadttheater Bern , there later as an actor and director ( note in the theater dictionary of Switzerland ).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marx, p. 247, 16. Zvu
  2. ↑ Santini, p. 75, 6. Zvu and Fiedler, p. 113, 12. Zvo
  3. ↑ Stenzel, p. 1063
  4. ↑ Fiedler, p. 114, below
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 446, 17. Zvo
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 449, 7th Zvo
  7. ↑ Edition used, p. 472, 5th Zvu
  8. ↑ Edition used, p. 453, 9. Zvo
  9. ↑ Santini, p. 76, 9th Zvu
  10. ↑ Edition used, p. 459, 12. Zvo
  11. ↑ Edition used, p. 461, 2nd Zvo
  12. ^ Fiedler, p. 116, 9. Zvo
  13. ↑ Sprengel anno 1984, p. 257 above
  14. ↑ Santini, p. 75, 5th Zvu
  15. ↑ Santini, p. 76 center
  16. ↑ Elektra Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 1948