Elektra (Strauss)

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Opera dates
Title: Elektra
Title page of the libretto, drawing by Lovis Corinth, 1909

Title page of the libretto, drawing by Lovis Corinth, 1909

Original language: German
Music: Richard Strauss
Libretto : Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Literary source: Electra by Sophocles
Premiere: January 25, 1909
Place of premiere: Royal Opera House Dresden
Playing time: approx. 1 hour, 40 minutes
Place and time of the action: Mycenae , after the Trojan War .
people
  • Clytemnestra , widow of Agamemnon , ruler of Mykenes ( mezzo-soprano )
  • Elektra , her daughter ( soprano )
  • Chrysothemis , her daughter (soprano)
  • Aegisth , Clytemnestra's new consort, ( tenor )
  • Orestes , Electra's brother ( baritone )
  • Orestes keeper (baritone)
  • The Confidante (Soprano)
  • The tow carrier (soprano)
  • A young servant (tenor)
  • An old servant ( bass )
  • The Overseer (soprano)
  • The first maid ( old )
  • The second maid (mezzo-soprano)
  • The third maid (mezzo-soprano)
  • The fourth maid (soprano)
  • The fifth maid (soprano)
  • Servants

Elektra (op. 58) is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss . The libretto wrote Hugo von Hofmannsthal . It is a slightly edited version of his eponymous drama from 1903, which in turn is based on the tragedy of the same name by Sophocles . The first performance took place on January 25, 1909 in the Royal Opera House in Dresden . Elektra is one of the most popular Strauss operas today.

action

Katarina Dalayman as Elektra, Stockholm 2009

prehistory

After Agamemnon's return from the Trojan War , he was murdered by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisth . Her daughter Elektra then brought her little brother Orestes to safety outside the country. There he is brought up to be his father's avenger. At the court of Mycenae, Elektra is the only one who keeps the memory of her father's murder alive and waits for the day of retribution.

Content of the opera

The setting is a courtyard opposite the rear of the Palace of Mycenae.

Four maids get excited about Elektra, who is tolerated at court despite her openly shown hatred. Only one young maid takes sides with Elektra. She is pushed into the house by the guard and beaten.

Enter Elektra At the hour when Agamemnon was murdered in the bathroom, she remembers her father every day. She imagines a bloody revenge on the murderers and the co-conspirators. On this day she wants to celebrate a bloody festival with victory dances. Her sister Chrysothemis pulls her out of her dreams. She warns Elektra about her mother and her husband, who want to lock her up and throw her into a tower. Chrysothemis no longer wants to wait for her brother to return and longs for marital happiness.

Both hear that the queen is approaching. She has had a bad dream again and wants to make a sacrifice to reconcile the gods. Chrysothemis moves away, but Elektra opposes the mother. Clytemnestra, hung with amulets and talismans, comes out of the palace with her entourage. Her confidants warn her about the hypocritical utterances of Electra. The queen, however, sends the maidservants away to speak to Elektra alone. She hopes to learn from her daughter how to get rid of the nightmares .

With Elektra alone, the queen describes her inexplicable “illness”, against which all customs and sacrifices have so far proven to be ineffective. Elektra claims to know a suitable sacrificial animal: a woman whose name she initially does not want to give. Only a threat from the queen loosens Electra's tongue. Clytemnestra herself must die, only then will her dreams cease. With gruesome pleasure, she describes in great detail the hunt and killing of her mother by the avenger Orestes. The queen is horrified at first. Then her confidante comes out of the palace and whispers something to her. With scornful laughter, the queen disappears into the palace and leaves Elektra alone.

Chrysothemis comes up wailing and tells Elektra the reason for Clytemnestra's sudden joy: Two strangers have just delivered the news that Orestes is dead. A servant has a horse saddled and rushes to meet Aegisth to bring him this "good news". Elektra is now trying to win Chrysothemis to help her revenge. She tells her that she has buried the ax that killed Agamemnon in the courtyard. She even promises Chrysothemis to prepare the wedding bed for her sister herself after this act. Chrysothemis doesn't want to know anything about it and hurries away.

Elektra wants to do the deed herself. She looks for the ax and digs it up. A young stranger repeated the news of Orest's death to her. When she gives him her name, the stranger is dismayed to see Electra, who looks so thin and emaciated. Then he reveals himself as Orestes. With the misinformation he hoped for easier access to the palace in order to avenge his father. Elektra, who is initially overjoyed to see her brother again, is at the same time ashamed of Orestes. She describes her thoughts of revenge in recent years, and how she sacrificed everything for it, her youth, her beauty and her self-respect. When Orest's old nurse appears, he rushes with him to the palace to carry out the act of revenge. It is only when both are gone that Elektra realizes that she has not given them the ax.

The dance of Elektra, staged by Uwe Eric Laufenberg at the Vienna State Opera , 2015

The Queen's death screams come from the palace. When Chrysothemis and the maids heard the screams, they rushed up, but were prevented from entering the palace by Elektra. As Aegisth approaches, the women move away. Only Elektra remains, greets him with hypocritical friendliness and lights the way for him to the palace, where he is slain by Orestes. The supporters of the murdered Agamemnon, who cheer Orestes, butcher the supporters of Klytemnestras and Aegisths. Chrysothemis rushes to Elektra and describes her brother's bloody victory. Elektra climbs into ecstatic rapture, begins a triumphal dance and then collapses. Chrysothemis calls out to her brother: “Orestes! Orestes! ".

Work history

After meeting in Berlin-Pankow in 1899 in the house of the poet Richard Dehmel , Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal met at the beginning of the new century in Paris : a decisive encounter for both sides, which until Hofmannsthal's death became one of the most successful working groups opera history should be. In the same year Hofmannsthal offered Richard Strauss, as agreed in Paris, a completed ballet for composition, The Triumph of Time . Strauss could not warm up to this ballet draft, and a collaboration did not yet take place.

In 1903 Richard Strauss attended the world premiere of Hofmannsthal's tragedy Elektra in Berlin. In his reflections and memories , Strauss later wrote:

“When I first saw Hofmannsthal's ingenious poetry in the“ Small Theater ”in Berlin with Gertrud Eysoldt , I recognized the brilliant opera text (which it actually became after my reworking of the Orestes scene) and, like at the time in Salome, the enormous musical increase to the end : in Elektra, after the recognition scene that can only be completely exhausted with music, the redeeming dance - in Salome after the dance (as the core of the plot), the gruesome final apotheosis. (...) At first I was shocked by the thought that both substances had a lot of similarities in their psychological content, so that I doubted whether I would have the power to present this substance in an exhaustive way a second time. However, the wish to oppose this demonic, ecstatic Greek culture of the 6th century, Winckelmann's Roman copies and Goethe's humanity, gained the preponderance over the misgivings, and so Elektra has even become an increase in the unity of the structure, in the power of the increases, - and I would almost like to say: she is to Salome like the perfect style, more uniform Lohengrin to the ingenious first litter of Tannhauser . Both operas are isolated in my life's work: In them I went to the extreme limits of harmony, psychic polyphony (Klytämnestra's dream) and the receptivity of today's ears. "

- Richard Strauss : Memories of the first performances of my operas

Hofmannsthal was able to dispel Strauss' initial concerns. The only similarities between the pieces, according to Hofmannsthal, are that they are one-act plays, have a woman's name, were played in ancient times and were premiered in Dresden. Strauss's wishes to write a material from the Renaissance or the French Revolution fell on deaf ears at Hofmannsthal. He said that in the foreseeable future he would not be able to produce any other material than that of Electra. Finally, in June 1906, Strauss wrote to Hofmannsthal: "I started with the Elektra, but it is still difficult to manage."

From the beginning there is a gloomy atmosphere, Electra's constant thought of revenge runs like a guide through the entire opera. ("Father! Agamemnon, your day will come. All time falls from the stars, and blood will fall from a hundred throats into your grave!") Klytemnestra, Electra's mother and opponent, is a woman on the verge of madness, with daily Nightmares. ("And then I sleep and dream, dream that the marrow in my bones will loosen ...") Contrasting with this is the figure of Chrysothemis, who hopes for a happy life instead of plotting for revenge: ("I want to have children ... I am a woman and want a woman's fate! ")

Hofmannsthal took up various wishes from Strauss and changed the libretto according to the wishes of the composer in order to make the plot even more dramatic. So he expanded the Orestes scene so that Strauss could insert an interlude while Elektra looks at her brother who has returned. Then she repeats Orest's name three more times, and almost sinks into tenderness before falling back into a gloomy, vengeful mood.

Strauss completed the composition on September 11, 1908, and finished writing the score on September 22. Elektra is richly orchestrated . With 111 musicians, it demands an even larger orchestra than Salome . Compared to Salome , the music is harder, harsher, more dissonant; it contains polytonal passages and huge sound blocks made of granite. Stylistically, Elektra represents an end point in Richard Strauss' work - his subsequent works are characterized by a clearly tonal, late romantic aesthetic.

On January 25, 1909 , like Salome four years earlier, Elektra was premiered at the Royal Opera House in Dresden under the direction of Ernst von Schuch . The director was Georg Toller. Annie Krull sang the title role, Ernestine Schumann-Heink sang the role of Klytämnestra . Margarethe Siems sang Chrysothemis. Richard Strauss writes in his memoirs: “The success of the premiere, which, as usual, I only found out afterwards, was a respectable success. Angelo Neumann even telegraphed “Diarrhea” to Prague! Now, for many, Elektra is the highlight of my work! Others vote for The Woman Without a Shadow ! The large audience swears by the Rosenkavalier . You have to be satisfied as a German composer to have made it this far. "

Immediately after the premiere, the work continued its triumphal march around the globe. After the publication of the Rosenkavalier and after the First World War , the work became a little quieter. Today Elektra is an integral part of the opera house repertoire.

Orchestral line-up

The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:

Recordings

literature

  • Susanne Rode-Breymann: Guntram - Feuersnot - Salome - Elektra . In: Richard Strauss Handbook. Edited by Walter Werbeck. JB Metzler, Stuttgart and Weimar and Bärenreiter, Kassel 2014, ISBN 978-3-476-02344-5 , pp. 170-183.
  • Ulrich Konrad : Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal Elektra. Silence and dancing . In: Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen , Laurenz Lütteken (Hrsg.): Masterpieces heard again. A little canon of music. 14 work portraits. Kassel, etc. Zurich 2004, pp. 285–302, 330–334.
  • Rudolf Hartmann: Richard Strauss - The stage works from the world premiere until today . R. Piper & Co Verlag 1980, ISBN 3-492-02567-6 .
  • Richard Strauss: reflections and memories ; published by Willi Schuh, Zurich 1957.
  • Rolf Fath: Reclam's opera guide . Reclam Verlag, ISBN 3-15-010406-8 ; 1994.
  • Culture Library Volume II: Opera and Operetta Guide. ISBN 3-88199-297-9 ; 1986.
  • Decca Records, recording and text book Elektra by Gert Uekermann; 1986.
  • Walter Panofsky: Richard Strauss - Score of a Life , Piper Verlag, Munich 1965.
  • Carl Dahlhaus : The tragedy as an opera. Elektra von Hofmannsthal and Strauss . In: Sieghard Döhring and Winfried Kirsch (eds.): History and dramaturgy of the one-act opera . Laaber 1991 (= Thurnauer Schriften zum Musiktheater 10), pp. 277–282.
  • Sonja Bayerlein: Musical psychology of the three women in the opera Elektra by Richard Strauss . Tutzing 1996 (= Würzburg music history contributions 16).
  • Gerd Indorf: The Elektra setting by Richard Strauss - “a profound misunderstanding” or a congenial achievement? In: Hofmannsthal Yearbook on European Modernism. 8, 2000, pp. 157-197.

Web links

Commons : Elektra (opera)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Richard Strauss: Memories of the first performances of my operas . In: Reflections and Memories , ed. by Willy Schuh. Zurich 1981
  2. ^ See letter from Hofmannsthal to Strauss, Rodaun April 27, 1906, In: Richard Strauss - Hugo von Hofmannsthal: Briefwechsel . Edited by Willy Schuh, Munich, Mainz 1990
  3. ↑ cf. Letter from Strauss to Hofmannsthal dated June 22, 1908, In: In: Richard Strauss - Hugo von Hofmannsthal: Correspondence . Edited by Willy Schuh, Munich, Mainz 1990
  4. ↑ Information on works from Schott Music , accessed on January 30, 2019.
  5. ^ Jürgen Schläder : Elektra. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater . Volume 6: Works. Spontini - Zumsteeg. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1997, ISBN 3-492-02421-1 , pp. 89-95.