Elektra, Op. 58, is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama Elektra. The opera was the first of many collaborations between Strauss and Hofmannsthal. It was finished in 1908, and first performed at the Königliches Opernhaus in Dresden on 25 January 1909 with Annie Krull in the leading role. It was dedicated to his friends Natalie and Willy Levin.
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History
While based on ancient Greek mythology and Sophocles' tragedy Electra, the opera is highly modernist and expressionist in style. Hofmannsthal's and Strauss's adaptation of the story focuses tightly on Elektra, thoroughly developing her character by single-mindedly expressing her emotions and psychology as she meets with other characters, mostly one at a time. (The order of these conversations closely follows Sophocles' play.) The other characters are Klytaemnestra, her mother and one of the murderers of her father Agamemnon; her sister, Chrysothemis; her brother, Orest; and Klytaemnestra's lover, Aegisth.
Various aspects from the myth are minimized as background to Elektra's character and her obsession. Other facets of the ancient story are completely excluded, in particular the earlier sacrifice by Agamemnon of his and Klytaemnestra's daughter Iphigenia, which was the motivation for Klytaemnestra's subsequent murder of Agamemnon. These changes tightened the focus on Elektra's furious lust for revenge. The result is a very modern, expressionistic retelling of the ancient Greek myth. Compared to Sophocles's Electra, the opera presents raw, brutal, violent, and bloodthirsty horror. Some scholars detect hints of incest in Elektra's dysfunctional family relationships. Norwegian musicologist Ståle Wikshåland has analysed the use of time and temporality in the dramaturgy of Elektra.
Elektra is the second of Strauss's two highly modernist operas (the other being Salome), characterized by cacophonous sections and atonal leitmotifs. These works contrast highly with his earliest operas and his later period. The reception of Elektra in German-speaking countries was mostly divided along traditionalist and modernist lines.
Performance history
Elektra is one of the most frequently performed operas based on classical Greek mythology, with a performance lasting—like the composer's earlier Salome—around 100 minutes. Elektra received its UK premiere at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1910 with Edyth Walker in the title role and Thomas Beecham conducting at the first- ever performance of a Strauss opera in the UK. The first United States performance of the opera in the original German was given by the Philadelphia Grand Opera Company at the Academy of Music on 29 October 1931, with Anne Roselle in the title role, Charlotte Boerner as Chrysothemis, Margarete Matzenauer as Klytaemnestra, Nelson Eddy as Orest, and Fritz Reiner conducting. The opera made its premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on 3 December 1932, with Gertrude Kappel singing the title role and Artur Bodanzky conducting.
Synopsis
Before the opera begins, Agamemnon sacrifices Iphigenia by deceit and leaves for the Trojan War. Upon his return, he is murdered by Klytaemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, who was a cousin to Agamemnon prompting fears of revenge from their children, Elektra, Chrysothemis, and the exiled Orest. Elektra remains at court to honor her father’s memory, while enduring hostility from her mother and the household.
Plot
Five servants try to wash the courtyard of the palace in Mycenae. While they do their work, they ask where can Elektra be, and she emerges from the shadows with a wild look on her face. The servants continue commenting how she came to be in that state and talk about how they taunt her only to receive insults from her. Only one servant shows sympathy for her, but she is taken away by the overseer to be flogged.
Elektra comes back for her daily ritual in memory of her father, who upon his return from Troy was killed while bathing by Klytaemnestra and Aegisth and dragged out into the courtyard. Elektra now starts imagining the day when her father will be avenged and then of the ensuing celebration in which she will lead the triumphal dance.
Chrysothemis enters the courtyard. Unlike Elektra, she is meek and accommodating, and has remained on decent terms with Klytaemnestra and Aegisth. However, she cares for the welfare of her sister. She tells Elektra that their mother plans to lock Elektra in a tower, where no daylight will enter. Elektra laughs at this plan. Elektra asks where Chrysothemis heard it. When she tells her that she heard it at the Queen's door, Elektra screams that there is nothing to find in this house but death. She might as well sit and wish death on her mother and stepfather, as Elektra does.
Chrysothemis does not wish to go on living a half-death in her own house: she wants to leave, marry and raise children.
As loud sounds are heard inside, Elektra mocks her sister that it is her wedding party. In reality, it is Klytaemnestra, who has just been awakened by her own nightmares. She goes with a large processional on her way to appease the gods through sacrifice. Chrysothemis tells Elektra that Klytaemnestra dreams of Orest murdering her. Chrysothemis begs Elektra not to stir trouble with Klytaemnestra today. She tells her that when their mother is scared, she is the most vicious. Elektra shuns her sister's pleas, telling her that she will speak to her mother as never before. Chrysothemis flees the courtyard.
Klytaemnestra stops at the sight of Elektra and wishes that she were not there to disturb her. She asks the gods for the reason for her burdens, but Elektra appeases her by telling her mother that she is a goddess herself.
Style and instrumentation
Musically, Elektra deploys dissonance, chromaticism and extremely fluid tonality in a way which recalls but moves beyond the same composer's Salome of 1905, and thus Elektra represents Strauss's furthest advances in modernism, from which he later retreated. The bitonal or extended Elektra chord is a well known dissonance from the opera while harmonic parallelism is also a prominent modernist technique.
To support the overwhelming emotional content of the opera, Strauss uses an immense orchestra of about 110—one of the largest in opera—with the following instrumentation:
Woodwinds: 2 piccolos, 4 flutes, 3 oboes, heckelphone, clarinet in E-flat, 4 clarinets in B-flat and A, 2 basset horns, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon
Brass: 8 French Horns, 4 Wagner tubas, 6 trumpets, bass trumpet, 3 trombones, contrabass trombone, tuba
Percussion: 6–8 timpani drums (2 players), snare drum, bass drum, switch, 1 pair of crash cymbals, suspended cymbal, tam-tam (gong), triangle, tambourine, 2 pairs of castanets, glockenspiel
Keyboards: celesta (ad libitum)
Strings: 2 harps (doubled if possible at the end, so 4), 24 violins divided into three groups (8 in each group), 18 violas divided into three groups (6 in each group), 12 cellos divided into two groups (6 in each group), 8 double basses
(The 4th flute is omitted in the instrumentation list at the beginning of the score, but there is actually still 4)
In addition to the massive orchestral forces and the large principal cast of singers, a full chorus is briefly used at the end of the opera from "Stimmen hinter der Scene" ("voices behind the scene") calling out the arrival of Orest from within the Palace following the murder of Aegisth.
Motives and chords
The characters in Elektra are characterized in the music through leitmotifs or chords including the Elektra chord, a polychord consisting of E major and C# major stacked on top of each other, building a chain of thirds accompanied by added thirds on top. The final form is an eleventh chord.
Klytaemnestra, in contrast to Agamemnon's clearly diatonic minor triad motif, is characterized by a bitonal six note collection most often represented as a pair of two minor chords a tritone apart, typically on B and F, rather than simultaneously.
Agamemnon's leitmotif is an arpeggiated D minor triad in the second inversion.