Ariadne

On with my Met on Demand subscription.  I am watching Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos with Kathleen Battle, Tatiana Troyanos, James King and Jessye Norman.  These are all singers that I loved.  You've never seen anyone wail the composer better than Tatiana Troyanos.  I miss her.

And no one wails anything better than Jessys Norman.  And in case you prefer coloratura, we have Kathleen Battle in her prime.  This is a must see. James Levine conducts.  If you look carefully, you will see Barbara Bonney and Dawn Upshaw.



The original film posted here has been withdrawn.  To view go to Met on Demand.

Die verkaufte Braut from Munich

Marie and Hans

👍🏻
Conductor: Tomáš Hanus
Staging: David Bösch

Selene Zanetti (Marie)
Pavol Breslik (Hans)
Günther Groissböck (Kezal)

I was in Smetana's Die verkaufte Braut long ago.  I played Marie's mother. We did it in German exactly as it is here in this live stream from the Bayerische Staatsoper. I even have my old score here near the computer.  Since I began blogging, I have only seen this in London and on DVD.  It is a sentimental favorite. In English we call it The Bartered Bride.

The plot concerns itself with love, of course.  Marie was promised in a contract with Kezal to marry only "Toby Mischa's son."  Who is an idiot who stutters and has a pet pig.  She likes Hans, played by one of the sexiest men on the opera stage.  They give away the plot in the credits which may explain why people think there is no plot.  This is sort of the male version of Cinderella.

My heart leaps at the familiar overture.  The music is lovely, the singing is terrific and Günther Groissböck is a hoot, the best possible Kezal. It's wonderful to see this now and then.  I hated the set.

Arabella with Kiri

Conductor Christian Thielemann
Production Otto Schenk

Arabella: Kiri Te Kanawa
Zdenka: Marie McLaughlin
Adelaide Waldner: Helga Dernesch
Matteo David Kuebler
Mandryka: Wolfgang Brendel
Count Waldner: Donald McIntyre
Fiakermilli:  Natalie Dessay

For my first full opera on my year of Met on Demand I have chosen Kiri Te Kanawa in Strauss's Arabella, I believe from 1994.

They have given her a handsome, passionate Mandryka in Wolfgang Brendel. I promise not to review everything I watch, but this has to be an exception.  This is by far the most traditional production I have seen for Arabella.  The world has changed, and I don't suppose there are counts and countesses everywhere anymore.  There is certainly no Austrian emperor today.  So a traditional production seems suitable.

It is fun to see Natalie Dessay pop in for a moment.

Arabella wants the some enchanted evening experience where you suddenly fall in love across a crowded room.  Mandryka is even worse.  He falls in love with a photograph.  The mystery of Arabella is the Zdenka/Zdenko character who falls in love with one of Arabella's suitors, a young man named Matteo who sends Arabella flowers every day.  She knows she has to marry money, and she knows he doesn't have any.  No one pays any attention to Zdenko/Zdenka, a girl pretending to be a boy.  She almost ruins everything.  She writes love letters to Matteo.  She seems almost invisible.  Even her mother pays her no attention.

For me I love to see the same piece performed in very different ways.  I probably saw Kiri in this in San Francisco, but now I am more familiar with the opera.  Kiri is at the sweet end of the range of emotions.  Perhaps Anja Harteros is at the other.

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Die Fledermaus from Dresden

Franz Welser-Möst (conductor) –

Jonas Kaufmann (Eisenstein),
Elisabeth Kulman (Prince Orlofsky),
Andreas Schager (Alfred)
Rachel Willis-Sørensen (Rosalinde)
Nicola Hillebrand (Adele)
and the Staatskapelle Dresden


I'd guess we did about 40 performances of Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus, so I pretty much know the whole thing by heart auf Deutsch.  No need for subtitles.  It's not really my Fledermaus in English.  So Jonas Kaufmann's first Eisenstein is a present to me via medici.tv.

An early favorite is the ensemble where they pretend to be sad and completely fail.  "Oh yeh, oh yeh."  This Orlofsky is something else.  She/he doesn't take no for an answer.  (If they cast a man as Orlofsky, I leave.)  The substitute Adele is excellent.

I was underwhelmed by the Rosalinde until she started into the Csárdás which was just right.  The soloists get champagne but the chorus doesn't.  We would never have stood for that.  It's also nice to hear such excellent German diction.  I miss Germany.

Jonas is fine as Eisenstein who is actually a high baritone, but the music for him isn't the focus of attention.  It's mainly an acting role, which we know he is also quite good at.

Thank you all for a happy new years eve performance.  Alles gute.

Arabella in San Francisco

--

Conductor Marc Albrecht *
Director Tim Albery *
Production Designer Tobias Hoheisel

Waldner family:
Arabella, elder daughter of the Waldners: Ellie Dehn (soprano) ‡
Zdenko/Zdenka, Arabella's sister: Heidi Stober 
Countess Adelaide Waldner, their mother: Michaela Martens ‡
Count Theodor Waldner, a retired cavalry officer, their father: Richard Paul Fink ‡

Arabella's suitors:
Mandryka, A Croatian landowner Brian Mulligan ‡
Matteo, a young officer Daniel Johansson * ‡
Count Elemer, one of Arabella's suitors Scott Quinn ‡
Count Dominik, one o f Arabella's suitors Andrew Manea † ‡
Count Lamoral, one of Arabella's suitors Christian Pursell † ‡

A Fortune - Teller to Countess Waldner: Jill Grove ‡
The Fiakermilli, a cabaret singer Hye Jung Lee ‡

* San Francisco Opera debut † Current Adler Fellow ‡ Role debut

A new production of Strauss's Arabella is currently running at the San Francisco Opera.  This opera is very nice, has lovely music and a perfect ending, as long as you remember that everyone in it is an idiot.  The Waldners have two daughters and no money because papa gambles it all away.  They are trying very hard to find a wealthy and suitable husband for their elder daughter Arabella.  Father remembers his old army buddy Mandryka and sends him a picture of his daughter.

Lohengrin from Bayreuth -- the Blue Lohengrin

Conductor:  Christian Thielemann
Production:  Yuval Sharon

King Heinrich:  Georg Zeppenfeld
Lohengrin:  Piotr Beczala
Elsa von Brabant:  Anja Harteros
Friedrich von Telramund:  Tomasz Konieczny
Ortrud:  Waltraud Meier
Heerrufer:  Egils Silins

The complete Lohengrin from Bayreuth has been posted on YouTube.  Piotr replaced Roberto Alagna in the title role, probably because Christian Thielemann had worked with him in his debut in the role in Dresden.  Piotr is quite successful in this role.  Lohengrin doesn't take on the Heldentenor tone seen in later Wagner.  Anja Harteros is making her Bayreuth debut here.  In her interview she says that Thielemann never does anything the same way twice.

At the beginning of the opera Elsa is already bound as a prisoner.  You will note please that the wings some of the characters wear only appear on the ruling classes.  King Heinrich has them, as do Friedrich and Ortrud, and of course Elsa.  This makes them symbols of position?  When the duel begins, the fighters fly up into the air, which makes the ropes defining the fighting ring irrelevant.  Lohengrin steals Friedrich's wings and is awarded his own set to adorn his costume when he wins the battle.

Parsifal

Conductor: Kirill Petrenko
Production: Pierre Audi

Amfortas: Christian Gerhaher
Titurel: Bálint Szabó
Gurnemanz: René Pape
Parsifal: Jonas Kaufmann
Klingsor: Wolfgang Koch
Kundry: Nina Stemme

I was overdosed on television, so I waited until the second act to see Wagner's Parsifal from Munich.  The opera started off with the most discussed part of the staging, the fat suits.  Nina was not required to wear a fat suit.  Nor was Jonas.  But I did recognize Golda Schultz.  Most of the Dresden Amens which I always dislike are in Act I, so this turned out to be a good decision for me.

Many people commented that they loved the production, but I felt it explained nothing.  I liked very much the collapsing wall effect, but that was pretty much it.  No subtitles and a production that explains nothing didn't work for me.  Too many things were not portrayed, such as Parsifal baptizing Kundry.

The biggest applause, as always in Munich, was for Kirill Petrenko.  I'm not sure I want to write any more about this.  As a listening experience, it was fabulous.  Such wonderful singing and conducting.  It was an especially good role for Nina Stemme.  I loved her blond wig.  Thank you.

Die Walküre

👍🏻
Conductor Donald Runnicles
Director Francesca Zambello

Brünnhilde, Wotan's daughter:  Iréne Theorin
Wotan:  Greer Grimsley
Fricka: Jamie Barton
Sieglinde, Hunding's wife:  Karita Mattila
Siegmund, Sieglinde's lost brother:  Brandon Jovanovich
Hunding:  Raymond Aceto
Siegrune, Valkyrie:   Laura Krumm
Grimgerde, Valkyrie:  Renée Rapier
Ortlinde, Valkyrie:  Sarah Cambidge
Gerhilde, Valkyrie:  Julie Adams
Rossweisse, Valkyrie:  Lauren McNeese
Schwertleite, Valkyrie:  Nicole Birkland
Helmwige, Valkyrie:  Melissa Citro
Waltraute, Valkyrie:  Renée Tatum

I have always considered Die Walküre my favorite part of the Ring.  Some scenes are the best part of the Ring while others are just endless talking.  As the years have passed, I increasingly see Wotan's long winded explanation to Brünnhilde as a self serving excuse for his screw ups.

But the opening scene is a joyous occasion.  Karita Mattila and Brandon Jovanovich are marvelous as the twins reuniting after a long separation.  I think modern audiences feel that a woman who never wanted to marry in the first place is fully justified in running off with an attractive almost stranger.  "Du bist der Lenz" is a gorgeous love song well sung here by our Siegmund.  Ok, I'm happy with him as a heldentenor.  They made a great pair.  The staging for this scene is excellent.  Except one minute there's no tree and the next minute there it is.

I enjoyed very much Iréne Theorin's entrance in act II.  Her "toi-jo-to-hos" were impressive.  This was followed by the spectacular tantrum of Jamie Barton's Fricka.  She is very put off by the twins thing.  Wotan drones on but completely messes up.  What is his "will" supposed to make of the fact that first he tells her to make Siegmund win the battle, then completely reverses himself to please Fricka.  She knows what his true will is and does that.

Then we have a scene under a freeway like a modern homeless couple.  Or another opera seen recently.  Sieglinde is having difficulties.  Here occurs the scene where Brünnhilde fulfills the Valkyrie's main role--she offers him eternity in Valhalla.  He refuses because Sieglinde will not be there.

The battle between Siegmund and Hunding has Brünnhilde fighting for Siegmund and Wotan against him.  Wotan wins, but Brünnhilde spirits Sieglinde away to save her unborn child.

I thought all these scenes went very well.  The highlight of this production is the Valkyries flying in on a wire with their heroes.  This is a piece of fun.  Brünnhilde walks in like a sensible person but has no hero.  Then follows the greatest scene in all the Ring:  Wotan's farewell.  He makes her into a mere human as punishment.  The music is very beautiful and was well sung by Greer Grimsley.

The quality of the singing is very high.  The staging sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.

A small additional comment:  at every possible opportunity the audience gave the orchestra and maestro Runnicles a huge ovation.  He was very popular here.

Die Walküre

Conductor:  Kirill Petrenko
Production:  Andreas Kriegenburg

Siegmund:  Simon O'Neill
Hunding:  Ain Anger [Ain Anger is bae. I stole this]
Wotan:  John Lundgren
Sieglinde:  Anja Kampe
Brünnhilde:  Nina Stemme
Fricka:  Ekaterina Gubanova

Die Walküre streamed from the Bayerische Staatsoper today.  Somehow I thought it was tomorrow and missed the first part.  I'm watching it on demand.  This is my favorite Wagner.

The first thing we notice is the stage is full of thin young women from the ballet.  They seem to be mostly set dressing.  When the sword theme plays, they shine small palm lights on the sword in the tree.  The director says they represent a context.

The second thing we notice is that while Ain Anger is beautiful to hear and see, in his role as Hunding he is a pig.  He dries his hands on his wife's dress.

I would describe this production as rural minimalism.  Without the ballet women it might get too dull.  Above you see the dead who are brought to Valhalla hanging on poles.  Perhaps that's who the girls are--the paradise maidens.  This production is making me smile.

I love this opera, more than any other Wagner.  The singing from Munich is glorious.  I love that the story is about love.  I like Tristan, but this grabs me more.  Kirill Petrenko wins again with the most applause.  Perhaps my operatic soul is German.

There is lots of shouting.  This is as it should be.

Post Script.  I always love Nina Stemme best, but it is curious to see her drinking from a plastic bottle of water and then rolling it into the wings.  Anja Kampe was outstanding as Sieglinde.

John Lundgren as Wotan was powerful and godlike with a wonderful low register.

Elektra Night at the Museum

Christine Goerke

 👍🏻
Conductor:  Henrik Nánási
Production:  Keith Warner

Elektra: Christine Goerke
Klytemnestra, Elektra's mother: Michaela Martens
Chrysothemis, Elektra's sister: Adrianne Pieczonka
Orest, Elektra's brother: Alfred Walker *
Aegisth, mother's lover: Robert Brubaker
Tutor of Orest: Anthony Reed

Last night I attended a San Francisco Opera performance of Richard Strauss's Elektra.  I have been going here for all of my adult life and can think of only one comparable performance--Die Frau ohne Schatten, also by Strauss, in 1980 with James King as The Emperor, Leonie Rysanek as The Empress and Birgit Nilsson as Barak's wife.  My soul is larger.  Everything that needs to be said has already been said about this, but I will have a go anyway.

In the recent past was another night at the museum production, of Il Trovatore with Anna Netrebko from Salzburg, but the exhibition seemed without a theme and incoherent.  Here we have what seems to be an exhibition of artifacts from Mycenae, the Greek culture which launched the Trojan War.  The house of Atreus with Agamemnon, Klytemnestra, Iphigenia, Orestes and Elektra are the central figures from this culture and appear through history in many art forms.  It is entirely plausible that an  exhibit devoted to physical objects from this time would take place.  Many of these objects appear in this production.  So we have a far more plausible intermingling of the ancient and the modern.  When they speak of Agamemnon, a man wearing the death mask said to belong to him appears.  We believe this.

Christine's character is always clearly a modern person who is projecting her life and family onto these historical figures.  We see this most clearly when this kitchen appears:

Klytemnestra and Elektra

We exclaimed to one another, "My mother had a kitchen like that."  The time travel was handled very smoothly.  This is clearly a very successful concept regie production.  All the other characters have dual identities and appear in modern and ancient clothing.  Other productions for this opera I have seen recently have all the main action take place off stage.  Here the deaths occur before our eyes.  It is intense.

Musically I found this to be a triumph.  The three women--Christine Goerke, Michaela Martens and Adrianne Pieczonka--were performed by three big voices in glorious fashion.  The biggest surprise was in the music.  It wasn't that long ago I was bemoaning the death of great Strauss conducting.  Henrik Nánási has shown us the way back.  It was the best Strauss I've heard in years, and it was by our San Francisco Opera orchestra.  Bravi.  Because the screens were turned on, I noticed that the orchestra stood immediately when the maestro came out for his final bow, turned toward him and applauded.

It was a colossal, towering performance on every level.

Oberon

Conductor:  Ivor Bolton
Production:   Nikolaus Habjan

Oberon.........................Julian Prégardien
Rezia.............................Annette Dasch
Hüon von Bordeau........Brenden Gunnell
Titania (Puck)................Alyona Abramowa
Fatime, Rezia's servant...Rachael Wilson
Scherasmin, Hüon's squire..Johannes Kammler

Oberon, or The Elf King's Oath (1826) by Carl Maria von Weber is originally in English with spoken dialog. Characters appear from A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Today it live streamed from the Bayerische Staatsoper where it presents in German with English subtitles.

The original dialog is rewritten to suit the regietheater production.  We saw this rewriting of the dialog recently in the Carmen from Aix-en-Provence, and it is strangely curious that it appears to be for the same reason--to make the opera about psychiatry. 

I'm getting the impression a lot of people are angry about psychiatrists.  They pick two seemingly random people from the audience and conduct experiments on them to see if they will experience passionate, long-lasting love.  As things go along we pick up on the idea that this is personal between the head psychiatrists and that one or both of them are betting on no. Here no papers are signed and the fantasy is assisted with drugs and electric treatments.

The producer Nikolaus Habjan is a puppeteer.  His puppets are larger than ventriloquist dummies but are handled similarly except the ventriloquist tries to be invisible.  I've seen this sort of thing before but I don't think in an opera.  The characters that exist entirely in the fantasy of Oberon assisting an imagined mortal in finding his love and recovering his good name.  The real people are the two men from the audience and Rezia.  We aren't sure if Fatime is real or imaginary.  The psychiatrists and lab technicians are all real, of course.  I don't know if it's necessary to explain this any further.  The action results from sick cruelties inflicted on the test subjects. 

Weber was a great composer, but this opera is supposed to have killed him.  It was a pleasure to hear this music, though technical difficulties interfered with some of the arias.  The greatest aria from this opera is "Ozean du Ungeheuer."  If you've never heard it, here is a sample.



Our soprano Annette Dasch was excellent, and at least one audience member shouted bis at the end of the aria.  We also liked the tenor Brenden Gunnell.

The drama comes out on the side of love.

Tannhäuser 👍🏻

👍🏻
Conductor:  Kirill Petrenko
Production:  Romeo Castellucci

Hermann, Landgraf von Thüringen: Georg Zeppenfeld
Tannhäuser: Klaus Florian Vogt
Wolfram von Eschenbach: Christian Gerhaher
Walther von der Vogelweide: Dean Power
Biterolf:  Peter Lobert
Heinrich der Schreiber: Ulrich Reß
Reinmar von Zweter: Ralf Lukas
Elisabeth, Nichte des Landgrafen: Anja Harteros
Venus: Elena Pankratova

There appears to be some nudity in this production of Wagner's Tannhäuser from the Bayerische Staatsoper.  Or maybe we are seeing body stockings.  Or some of each.  I'm imagining the casting call for the set of archers shown who are clearly topless.  Their boobs are too uniform to be ballet.  [Research indicates that the archers are members of the ballet.  I'm still not sure I believe it.]  Later in the opera are people lying on the floor who are wearing body stockings.

The archers are very carefully blocked so that when they are actually shooting, they are always facing up stage.  The cocked arrows are never pointed anywhere else. It is interesting to notice that none of the arrows fell to the floor.  Later in the opera one of the characters pulled back an arrow and pointed it in the general direction of Elisabeth.  I did not like this at all.

I did not hallucinate that the Dresden Amen appears in Act III.  I'll have to learn to sublimate my reaction to this showing up in Wagner.

The most reaction in my group was to these feet.  Feet!  I won't bother to try to explain this production and have probably already shown the most interesting parts.

The orchestra, chorus, conductor and soloists were glorious.  I especially liked Anja Harteros, but then I generally do.  It was entirely beyond ones very high expectations.

Anja looks down on her dead self.  Please note:  the tombstones are named after the singers and not the characters they portray.  The talking heads said that this was to show that an opera staging is just pretend.  No attempt is made to explain her death, except we are told that an hour has elapsed.

The production is a cross between Star Wars and The Hunger Games, and instead of Venusberg we have Venusfleischberg [mountain of flesh].

Again the greatest applause is for Petrenko whose contract has been extended to 2021.

Sign back stage during this performance.  Attention Life Danger!!!  Bow and arrow action.  It is forbidden to enter the stage when the doors are locked by staff.

Die Walküre

Harteros and Kampe at the Salzburg Easter Festival 2017. Anja does it just right. See 5:10.  Oh wait.  They're both named Anja.  That would be Harteros.

Das Lied von der Erde

Anyone would want to sing "Der Abschied."  I used to play it in piano reduction even with my pathetic keyboard skills just for the joy of making this music.  It's one of the great things.  So it isn't hard to understand why Jonas Kaufmann would want to.  Perhaps he reads the idiotic comments where people tell him he's a baritone.  He isn't.

So this is sort of a stunt recording of Mahler's Synphony Das Lied von der Erde (1909).  It is important to remember that the expected voicing is tenor and alto.  I like Janet Baker.

Don't get the wrong idea.  I love Jonas Kaufmann, but I think it is the operatic dramatic tenor Jonas Kaufmann that I most love.  Here we have Jonas in his two most prominent incarnations:  Verdi tenor and pop song crooner.  Alternating.  His renditions of the tenor movements are great.  His renditions of the alto movements aren't.  He isn't a baritone because he doesn't achieve any intensity in the baritone tessitura, and he can't really do the low notes.  Sorry.  It's pleasant but not thrilling.

Die liebe Erde allüberall blüht auf im Lenz und grünt Aufs neu!
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Dresden Lohengrin

Conductor: Christian Thielemann
Production:  Christine Mielitz

Lohengrin:  Piotr Beczala 
Elsa von Brabant:  Anna Netrebko 
Heinrich der Vogler, King: Georg Zeppenfeld
Friedrich von Telramund:  Tomasz Konieczny
Ortrud, Friedrich's wife: Evelyn Herlitzius
Der Heerrufer des Königs:  Derek Welton

Another Elektra with Janis Martin

ELEKTRA
Oper Köln 24-November-1985
Conductor - Gerd Albrecht

Janis Martin
Kathryn Montgomery-Meissner
Helga Dernesch
Hermann Winkler
Harald Stamm

Janis is convincingly a soprano here--perhaps the first time I have thought so.  

Tristan und Isolde in HD

Conductor:  Simon Rattle
Production:  Mariusz Trelinski

Tristan:  Stuart Skelton
Isolde:  Nina Stemme
Brangäne:  Ekaterina Gubanova
King Marke:  René Pape
Kurwenal:  Evgeny Nikitin

English Horn Solo:  Pedro R. Díaz

Things I liked about Wagner's Tristan und Isolde live in HD today.

I liked the outstanding conducting by Simon Rattle.  I very much enjoyed listening to him talk about today's performance.

I liked Debbie Voigt interviewing Nina Stemme, one Isolde to another.  I liked it when Nina said playing a Valkyrie could make you more of a Valkyrie.

I liked that this was the first time I thought while listening to the performance that only the Metropolitan Opera orchestra could play this piece this much more beautifully than anyone else.

I liked Nina Stemme and Stuart Skelton putting their own personal stamps on this opera.  So much emotion, so much emotional singing and acting.

I liked René Pape, the best Wagner baritone around.

I liked so much love.  So much love by everyone on the stage, in the pit, behind the stage.  So much love.  I cried.

I liked the production which took images from the libretto to form the basis for its visual effects.

I liked talk about the anniversary performance of Antony and Cleopatra by Samuel Barber.  It was a new house with all the fancy new equipment.  Franco Zeffirelli used every new gadget in his production, and most of them failed.  Rosalind Elias and Justino Díaz were interviewed from the original cast.  And it's not true that the other performances were cancelled.

I liked Richard Wagner's libretto which I could primarily understand in Nina's singing.  This was a surprise.  This production might just work better without the surtitles.  In the house this would be possible.  For me the text was too bright against the dark background.

I liked seeing the love in their faces.

I haven't thought of anything I didn't like except Isolde smoking.  I feel recovered from Donnerstag.

In case I haven't been clear enough I want to say that I found this Tristan und Isolde to be deeply satisfying on every level.  I felt that the story penetrated my consciousness as never before, that the orchestra playing was profoundly beautiful and the singing actors the best ever.

Of course the production is Regietheater.  We are moved to an abstraction of today with military uniforms and modern dresses.  If there were difficulties, they were to be found in the projections, sometimes symbolic, sometimes personal.  A boy is seen and a thin man in a white uniform who cannot be King Marke.  I think this comes from the Act III solo by Tristan where he describes how he knows the sad tune he is hearing.  His mother died when he was born and his father when he was still a child.  So the projections picture the young Tristan and his father who must also have been a high ranking military man.  The ghost child is also Tristan.

I thought I was seeing a solar eclipse in the black circle surrounded by light.  And some kind of nautical device in the other circle.  I always feel free to ignore symbolism.

Meistersinger

Die Meistersinger streamed today from Glyndebourne.  It was the same production we saw recently at the San Francisco Opera.  This opera is all about Hans Sachs and Gerald Finley is his master.  Hail.

Research indicates that this is from 2011.  I still liked it.
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Noch einmal Meistersinger

I'm listening to Die Meistersinger stream from Munich.  I think I really like only the third act with the gorgeous trio, the procession of the Meistersingers, the Prize song and the sometimes, lately most of the time, the imaginary happy ending.  In my heart it has a happy ending.

I am liking Jonas Kaufmann, of course, but I also like marvelous chorus, Sara Jakubiak as Eva, and Wolfgang Koch as Hans Sachs (though not as much as Michael Volle in Salzburg.)  The opera belongs to Sachs.

Petrenko's conducting is masterful.  The biggest applause is for him.

Elektra in HD

Conductor:  Esa-Pekka Salonen
Production:  Patrice Chéreau

Klytämnestra, Elektra's mother: Waltraud Meier (mezzo-soprano)
Elektra: Nina Stemme (soprano)
Chrysothemis, Elektra's sister: Adrianne Pieczonka (soprano)
Aegisth, Klytämnestra's new husband: Burkhard Ulrich (tenor)
Orest, Elektra's brother: Eric Owens (baritone)

Two different performances of Richard Strauss' Elektra in the same month is a bit overwhelming.  The first was at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on April 7.  The second was the live simulcast from the Metropolitan Opera.  I will not be able to help comparing them.  The libretto is by Hugo von Hofmannsthal.

We were told in the interviews at the beginning that this was probably the largest orchestra ever crowded into the Met orchestra pit.  The simulcasts seem to find a way around any problems with the orchestra covering the singers.  Both Esa-Pekka Salonen and Donald Runnicles are excellent conductors, though I have heard Runnicles many more times.

There is not much to contrast about the productions.  Both were drab, gray, modernized productions designed to emphasize the grimness of the story.  Elektra, Chrysothemis and Orest are all children of Agamemnon, the chief commander on the Greek side of the Trojan war.  While he is gone for 10 years fighting the war over Helen, his wife Klytämnestra takes up with another man.  When Agamemnon returns, Klytämnestra and Aegisth kill him with an ax.  Orest is banished, and Elektra spends her years wishing for revenge.

The two productions reference the ax differently.  In Berlin Klytämnestra enters using it as a cane, and she leaves it behind when she flees from Elektra who is threatening her.  In New York Elektra brings the ax out of Agamemnon's tomb where she has been keeping it.  I think the New York production follows the libretto more closely.  It is clear there that Klytämnestra is making animal sacrifices to appease the gods.  I thought for some reason that in Berlin she carried the ax around to kill people with it and don't remember a reference to animal sacrifices.  She comes to visit Elektra to ask her what she must do to stop dreaming that Orest will come to kill her.  What sacrifice must I offer?  Who do I need to kill?  Elektra's answer:  yourself.

In Berlin Klytämnestra and Aegisth were both killed at the back of the stage by Orest.  At the Met Orest's tutor kills Aegisth downstage while Orest is offstage.  For me the Berlin staging of the killings worked better.  It's perhaps a tossup.

The Elektras from both productions are the same age, 53.  The greatest contrast in the two productions was in the singing.  At the Met the whole cast were heavier voices than the Berlin cast, with the possible exception of Waltraud Meier who sang in  sweet but terrified style.  She is a wonderful singer who brings her great presence to the role.  [Was she wearing Venetian beads?]

In Berlin Chrysothemis was sung by a lyric soprano, while Adrianne Pieczonka is a dramatic and sang much heavier.  She seemed to be auditioning for Elektra.  Perhaps.  I always love and respect Nina Stemme who was simply glorious.  The intensity and drama carried throughout both productions.  In Berlin Elektra dances and then dies.

Occasionally you hear in the orchestra tiny hints of the Strauss opera which comes next:  Der Rosenkavalier.  I feel that I have had my fill of Elektra.