Semperoper
Elektra
– Elena Pankratova
Chrysothemis
– Manuela Uhl
Klytämnestra
– Jane Henschel
Orest
– Markus Marquardt
Aegisth – Jürgen Müller
First
Maid – Constance Heller
Second
Maid – Stephanie Atanasov
Third
Maid – Christa Mayer
Fourth
Maid – Roxana Incontrera
Fifth
Maid – Nadja Mchantaf
Overseer
– Sabine Brohm
Young
Servant – Simeon Esper
Old
Servant – Tilmann Rönnebeck
Orest’s tutor – Matthias Henneberg
Confidante – Andrea Ihle
Trainbearer – Christiane Hossfeld
Barbara Frey (director)
Muriel Gerstner (set designs)
Bettina Walter (costumes)
Gérard Cleven (lighting)
Micaela von Marcard (dramaturgy)
Almost anything would have been an
anti-climax following the Semperoper’s Rosenkavalier
the previous day, but, odious comparisons aside, there was still something
disappointing to the experience of so routine an Elektra as my final instalment of Strauss Year. Barbara Frey’s production
was new earlier this year, but frankly it already looked far more old and tired
than Uwe Eric Laufenberg’s staging of the next Strauss-Hofmannsthal
collaboration, which had first been seen in 2000. There really did not seem to
be very much to it at all. Few set designs for Elektra have in my experience looked radically different. Here
there is less granite, whether literal or figurative, than often, but the
action still unfolds in what appears to be a royal palace and household that
have seen better days. An inscription referring to royal justice hangs
pregnantly, ironically, over proceedings, but alas little of what we see lives
up to our anticipations. Perhaps there was simply not enough rehearsal for a
repertory performance; there was definitely a sense of the performers being
left to fend for themselves. Odd touches, such as child actors appearing on
stage during the Recognition Scene, so as to remind us that Elektra and Orest
last saw each other when children, really add nothing. One would have to have
been taking very little notice at all not to have grasped that dramatic point
already.
Lothar Koenigs was apparently ill, and
had been replaced by the veteran replacement-conductor, Peter Schneider. Again,
there was a strong sense of lack of rehearsal. Schneider’s vague, listless
direction of the score suggested a run-through rather than a performance in any
emphatic sense. The Staatskapelle Dresden could doubtless not put on a bad
performance of Strauss if it tried, but by its standards, it was hardly on
form. There was a distinct lack of focus, too much of Pierre Monteux’s ‘indifference
of mezzo forte’; again, the contrast with the Rosenkavalier was glaring. When the full
force of the orchestra seemed finally to be unleashed, at the very close, it
seemed too little, too late.
Elena Pankratova was the best reason to
have heard this performance. She probably needed more help in terms of stage
direction, but her vocal performance was generally strong, speaking of a strong
musico-dramatic commitment throughout. This was indeed a musical performance,
not a house of horrors exhibition of screaming. Manuela Uhl’s Chrysothemis offered gleaming sound,
though her intonation wavered a little too often. Jane Henschel is a fantastic
singing-actress, but here she erred too much for me on the side of caricature.
Again, perhaps stronger direction, both stage and musical, would surely have
helped create something more. Markus
Marquardt proved a sadly wooden Orest, but Jürgen Müller
offered an uncommonly well-sung Aegisth. Not a vintage evening, then, not even
close; but I should forgive almost anything for that Rosenkavalier.
