Elektra, Royal Opera, 23 September 2013



Image: Clive Barda
Ägisth (John Daszak) and Elektra (Christine Goerke)

 

 

Royal Opera House

First Maid – Anna Burford

Second Maid – Catherine Carby
Third Maid – Elizabeth Sikora
Fourth Maid – Elizabeth Woollett
Fifth Maid – Jennifer Check
Overseer – Elaine McKrill
Elektra – Christine Goerke
Chrysothemis – Adrianne Pieczonka
Klytämnestra – Michaela Schuster
Confidante – Louise Armit
Trainbearer – Marianne Cotterill
Young Servant – Doug Jones
Old Servant – Jeremy White
Orest – Iain Paterson
Orest’s Companion – John Cunningham
Ägisth – John Daszak

Charles Edwards (director, set designs, lighting)

Brigitte Reiffenstuel (costumes)
Leah Hausman (movement)

Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renato Balsadonna)

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
Andris Nelsons (conductor)

 
Charles Edwards’s production of Elektra, first seen in 2003, and revived in 2008, now returns to Covent Garden under the baton of Andris Nelsons. There remains much to admire in the staging, though I found myself entertaining a little more in the way of doubt than I had on previous occasions. My impression was that it had become gorier, and it may well have done, though by the same token, it may have been that I was now more attentive to what it had in common with, rather than what distinguished it from, David McVicar’s Royal Opera Salome. (McVicar was present in the audience.) Violence had always been present, not least in the shocking torture of the Fifth Maid, her twitching and indeed at one point revivified corpse, long present on stage to remind us, lest we forget. Playing with time, the ‘present’ of Strauss and Hofmannsthal meshed with ancient Mycenae, or rather with an idea thereof, remains a strength. A sense of the archaeological is offered by Agamemnon’s bust, and the shadow it casts: at one point as towering as the motif associated with the murdered king. Perhaps that sense might have been stronger; there are moments when the relationship seems unclear and a stronger impression of recreating a past that never was might assist. But it is quite possible that that is the point; we are after all in the world of dreams, of psychoanalysis. A splendid touch in that respect is Elektra’s desk. One might read its role in various ways; I could not help but think of a more or less explicit consultation, not only when Klytämnestra comes to her in need of interpretation, but also in the scene with Ägisth. Piercing the darkness with the fierce ray of her desk lamp heightens that impression, Elektra’s lighting his way viewed from a new standpoint, both literally and more figuratively. A particularly troubling sense of familial sickness – I realise that in this opera, that is something of an understatement – is offered by the relationship of Elektra and Orest. It appears that there is something rather more than sibling affection between them, though that is not laboured. It certainly seems confused, as it would be: fleetingly maternal, fleetingly paternal, at one point apparently sexual. Or maybe it is that Edwards’s staging allows the audience the space to offer its own interpretation; whatever the ‘intention’, the result is provocative in the best sense. My present taste may lie more with relative abstraction; that, however, is no reason to dismiss other approaches.

 

‘Ob ich nicht höre? ob ich die Musik nicht höre?’ Elektra asks, commencing the last and most delirious of her monologues: ‘Do I not hear it? Do I not hear the music?’ She maintains that it comes from inside her, though we, in a sense, know that at best to be a partial truth; Strauss’s orchestra has shown itself true to Wagner’s Opera and Drama – for Strauss, the ‘book of all books’ on opera – conception of the orchestra as the modern Attic chorus. Far too often, however, we find ourselves lamenting the tone-deafness of stage directors, wishing to ask them, in the nicest possible way, or perhaps not, whether they do not hear it, do they not hear the music? Therein perhaps lies the greatest strength of Edwards’s staging, aided by Leah Hausman’s movement, in that it clearly hears Strauss’s music. It is not enslaved, but rather liberated by it. There are instances where movement is clearly tied to the score, others when it is more a case of heightening of tension on stage relating to the orchestra as much as to the libretto. Lighting – Edwards’s own – is as attentive and revealing as movement.

 

And what music, it is, of course, in what must surely be Strauss’s greatest opera. (It may not be our favourite, but that is a different matter.) Nelsons was often impressive, at his best offering an object lesson in transition: Wagner’s ‘most subtle art’, as it should be in Strauss too. The recognition scene was but one exemplary instance. Not only was dramatic process tightly and meaningfully controlled, with an aptly unsettling sense of release that was not at all release when Elektra’s slinky ‘Orest! Orest! Es rührt sich niemand’ stole upon us; Strauss’s phantasmagorical cauldron of orchestral colour here and in many other cases had been stirred so as to provide just the right sense of dream-world and nausea for us to receive what was unfolding. Indeed, there were numerous instances in which I heard the score sound closer to the Strauss of earlier tone poems than I can recall; it is doubtless no coincidence that Nelsons has been exploring that orchestral repertoire in some depth of late. Other transitions were handled with less security; the second scene, for instance, seemed to follow on abruptly from the first, indeed from a prolonged caesura rather than musico-dramatic inevitability. There may well, however, be good reason to believe that the flow will become still more impressive as the run of performances continues. Likewise, if Nelsons’s ear for colour seemed somewhat to desert him at the very close, that may well be rectified, and may have been more a matter of orchestral exhaustion than anything else. The orchestra itself was on good rather than great form, but it was only when one made comparisons, as inevitable as they are odious, with one’s aural memory – always a dangerous, deceptive game – thinking, for instance, of Karl Böhm’s magnificent Staatskapelle Dresden, or of Daniele Gatti’s astounding Salzburg Festival account, the Vienna Philharmonic at the very top of its form, that discrepancy became apparent.

 

Christine Goerke’s assumption of the title role may  be accounted a resounding triumph. There was dramatic commitment, to be sure, but also vocal security and clarity that are far from a foregone conclusion in this treacherous role. If there were moments of strain, I either did not notice, or have forgotten them; this was very much a sung rather than screamed Elektra. Adrianne Pieczonka gave the finest performance I have heard from her as Chrysothemis, her voice more focused and with considerably greater bloom than I recall from, for instance, her Salzburg Marschallin. (Perhaps this role is a better fit vocally for her, or maybe her time has more fully come.) Michaela Schuster threw herself wholeheartedly into a splendidly malevolent portrayal of Klytämnestra, with John Daszak as her husband finely managing the tricky balancing act between portrayal of a weak, contemptible character and convincing assumption of the role. Iain Paterson offered a typically musicianly, quietly chilling Orest. Smaller parts were all well taken, the individual lines and timbres of the five maids impressively apparent.

 

At the end, then, I felt duly bludgeoned, as that least affirmative of C major chords dealt the final blow. There is no redemption: a concept that Strauss never understood, as witnessed by his bemusement over Mahler’s desire for that most Wagnerian of goals. Here, however, as is not always the case with the composer, thoroughgoing, post-Nietzschean materialism and dramatic truth go hand in hand. Adorno’s attack upon Strauss’s concluding music seemed to me more wrongheaded than ever: testament, surely, to a staging and performance worthy of Elektra.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, English National Opera, 19 May 2011

 The Coliseum

Images: Alastair Muir (click to enlarge)
The eve of the wedding...

 
Oberon – William Towers
Bottom – Sir Willard White
Tytania – Anna Christy
Lysander – Allan Clayton
Demetrius – Benedict Nelson
Theseus – Paul Whelan
Puck – Jamie Manton
Helena – Kate Valentine
Hermia – Tamara Gura
Flute – Michael Colvin
Snug – Grame Danby
Snout – Peter van Hulle
Starveling – Simon Butteriss
Quince – Jonathan Veira
Cobweb - Alexander Lee
Peaseblossom - Luke Saint
Mustardseed - Luke Dugan
Moth - Dominic O'Donnell
Changeling boy - Dominic Williams
Hippolyta - Catherine Young


Christopher Alden (director)
Charles Edwards (set designs)
Sue Wilmington (costumes)
Adam Silverman (lighting)

Boys of Trinity School, Croydon (chorus master: David Swenson)
Orchestra of the English National Opera
Leo Hussain (conductor)

Iestyn Davies (Oberon) and
Anna Christy (Tytania)

ENO’s superlative Return of Ulysses has been my operatic highlight of the season so far; This Midsummer Night’s Dream in many respects comes close: such a relief after the well-nigh unwatchable Damnation of Faust recently endured. But this was not easy ‘relief’, Christopher Alden’s production proving intent on exploring the darker side of Britten and his work. It was telling that the discomfort of a certain section of the audience manifested itself in the unpardonable boorishness of booing the production team. Reactionaries who might just about have reconciled themselves to Britten’s music – forget Birtwistle... – did not want their ‘enjoyment’ ruined by something that went beyond kitschy tales from the Athenian woods. For those with ears to listen, as well as eyes to see, an opera that has its weaknesses emerged stronger and, a signal achievement this, managed both to chill the spine and to elicit genuine comedy. How many times has one previously consulted a watch during the Tedious Brief Scene of Pyramus and Thisbe? Not on this occasion. Excellent personal direction and acting, not least from Sir Willard White’s Bottom, made that scene a genuine joy, focusing attention on Britten’s clever parodies, which thereby emerged as more than merely clever (often a danger with this particular composer).

That said, the darkness is really the thing. Alden daringly – and no, I am not using the word ‘ironically’ – reimagines the opera in terms of a mid-twentieth-century boys’ school. I immediately thought of Britten’s own – and Auden’s – Gresham’s, a connection reinforced both by Charles Edwards’s superb set designs and a mysterious figure strolling around, observing, and to a certain extent participating, suggestive of Britten himself. (More of that figure anon.) Just in case one were in any doubt, the inscription above the school entrance forbiddingly – invitingly for some? – reads ‘BOYS’. The fairies are the younger boys, with Puck an older, apparently knowing member of the community. Oberon and Titania are an especially twisted master and mistress, free with their favours, clearly in competition for the favour of their charges. A nice touch is Titania’s schoolmarmishly wooden beating time for the fairy choruses. When Puck gets things wrong, he is subjected to a spanking by his master Oberon, who may already have transferred his affections to the Indian Boy. Clearly Puck will have to redouble his efforts, though his relationship to the Britten-like figure seems to grant him extra kudos. Lysander and Hermia explore their sexual awakening behind the dustbins, whilst the sadistic rejection of Helena by Demetrius and her masochistic response are especially cutting and credible, given his status as a highly popular member of the rugby team. Sue Wilmington’s costumes, here and elsewhere, strike just the right note. One can quibble, no doubt, about what the girls are doing there at all, but their presence does not really jar, and girls have a habit of sneaking in to such environments, wanted or otherwise. During their explorations, the boys are initially as inclined to play with each other, similarly the girls, as old habits die hard. The magic, when it comes, is all, or at least mostly, to be attributed to whatever it is that Oberon is smoking. Puck passes around the cigarette to devastating effect. It may sound contrived, but it really works on stage. And he threatens to set the entire school ablaze at the end of the second act.

Paul Whelan (Theseus) and Jamie Manton (Puck)

Finally, the observer, himself earlier subjected to sado-masochistic tying up by Puck, is revealed to be the Duke, returned to his old school on the eve of his wedding and now again following the (play) reception. One often wonders, whether in Shakespeare or Britten, quite what the nature of his role should be: not here, for we were in for another turn of the screw. This is a tormented man, turned tormentor, who, following the rustics’ departure, manages to free himself from his respectable, echt-1950’s wife, returns to the school to revisit Puck, with whom he has earlier shared his neck-ties (a bond, it seems, born of a gift, or perhaps of identity). Puck, whom one might expect now to be triumphant, appears broken, perhaps literally. The abuse, and abuse it undoubtedly it is, has taken its toll. Rather than force himself upon the boy again, the Duke, perhaps chastened, as a Puck himself in later life, slinks away. Punk’s final words are defiant, but we know that this boy will remain troubled.

The cast entered into this scenario with gusto. Indeed, one had the real sense of a company performance, and even if it were not so in the strictest sense, it is surely no coincidence that many of these artists have worked together before. Iestyn Davies, sadly, was ailing, similarly his understudy Iestyn Morris, so Davies acted the role of Oberon, whilst Will Towers sang from the side of the stage. With that performance, Towers has doubtless ensured himself of a major role of his own at ENO before long, with a hauntingly beautiful rendition that never once lapsed into stereotypical hooting. (I cannot say the same for a certain other, highly celebrated counter-tenor, whom I heard a few years ago at Glyndebourne.) Allan Clayton was also, we were told, suffering from an infection, but one would barely have known: his Lysander remained an impressive portrayal. Benedict Nelson’s Demetrius was full of youthful masculine swagger, which yet retained a propensity, understated though it may have been, to equally youthful self-doubt. Tamara Gura and Kate Valentine made an impressive pair of female lovers. White’s excellent Bottom, blessed by a genuinely comic vocal delivery I have not heard in this artist before, was complemented by an excellent oddball assortment of rustics, from whom Michael Colvin’s Flute should be considered first amongst equals. The Donizetti parody truly hit home. Paul Whelan, whom I previously admired as Claggart in Glyndebourne’s Billy Budd, proved a haunted and haunting Theseus: this Duke will linger long in the mind. Jamie Manton was equally impressive as Puck, his adolescent cockiness twisted into something almost too painful to watch; memories of Manton’s fine performance will doubtless prove equally difficult to dispel. Magic, as the production suggested, only takes one so far: to treat it is a refuge from reality is at best irresponsible.


Underpinning this real company success were the excellent contributions of Leo Hussain and the ENO Orchestra. Hussain, making his ENO debut, conducted as if he were a knight of the realm, so readily did Britten’s style and structure speak from his baton. One would not have been surprised to discover that it was a Sir Colin, or a late Sir Charles, save that neither of those conductors, I suspect, would have warmed to Alden’s production. Magic was there: those harps, the woodwind, the slithering fairy-music. We were left in no doubt, however, that malevolence was always present too. (What, after all, is a forest? It is hardly a place of straightforward comfort. Think of Hansel and Gretel.) Above all, and this is crucial in music that can otherwise tend to meander, Britten’s score was shown to be constructed. The booers would doubtless have preferred not to be reminded of Britten’s twelve-note experimentation, but so much the worse for them. Boys from Trinity School, Croydon, proved impressive too, clearly well coached by their Director of Music, David Swinson.

It was an interesting coincidence upon returning home from the Coliseum last night, to post a quick summary on Twitter, to see the name of Melanie Phillips ‘trending’ there. (Reader: if you do not know who she is, may you at all costs strive to retain your blissful ignorance. Suffice it to say, that she is a ‘commentator’ to the humourless, far right fringe even of the rabid, petit bourgeois bigotry that infests the Daily Mail, Britain’s answer to Der Stürmer, both then and now. To its eternal discredit, The Spectator offers her a platform upon its website too.) It appears that Ms Phillips had wound up – and she appears to mean what she says – a good section of the television audience for BBC television’s Question Time, doubtless by spitting and cursing upon the slightest semblance of human charity. One can well imagine how she and her readers would have reacted to this production: not a justification in itself, but not a bad sign either. As Germaine Greer has pointed out, the obsession amongst large sections of our society with paedophilia reflects their own paedophilia: witness the photographic reproductions of missing children, especially girls, whereas for those of us not interested, we are simply not interested and should prefer to hear about something else (our ruling class desperately trying to keep it from us). They want to ‘hear all about it’ but react violently when their motives are questioned, let alone examined, hence the mittelständisch booing. The more vicious the society, the more vicious the individual, as we shall be reminded when the Royal Opera revives Peter Grimes next month. ENO would also seem to have set the scene very nicely for Nico Muhly’s Two Boys, from which I shall also report in late June.

The Makropulos Case, English National Opera, 20 September 2010

(sung in English)

Coliseum

(Image: EM with Janek - Neil Libbert)

Emilia Marty – Amanda Roocroft
Dr Kolenatý – Andrew Shore
Vítek – Alasdair Elliott
Kristina – Laura Mitchell
Albert Gregor – Peter Hoare
Baron Prus – Ashley Holland
Janek – Christopher Turner
Hauk-Šendorf – Ryland Davies
Stage Technician – William Robert Allenby
Cleaning Lady – Morag Boyle
Chambermaid – Susanna Tudor-Thomas

Christopher Alden (director)
Charles Edwards (set designs)
Sue Wilmington (costumes)
Adam Silverman (lighting)
Claire Glaskin (choreography)

Chorus of the English National Opera (chorus master: Nicholas Chalmers)
Orchestra of the English National Opera
Sir Richard Armstrong (conductor)


Christopher Alden’s production of The Makropulos Case garnered considerable acclaim upon its first ENO outing. It benefited from a strong cast and from the guiding hand of the late Sir Charles Mackerras – to whose memory this performance was dedicated – but it has virtues of its own. Foremost amongst them are Charles Edwards’s powerful set designs, redolent of Eastern European civic architecture without fetishising a location that ultimately is neither here nor there: for the truly though not exclusively national, one turns to the music. These designs frame the action in a manner that manages to convey a degree of claustrophobia but also the public arena in which the drama plays itself out. Emilia Marty is an opera singer, after all – and a ‘famous’ one at that. But there is perforce coldness at her heart, such being the nature of her near-immortal predicament, and that coldness is reflected in the setting, not least Adam Silverman’s lighting. The men lined up outside look in on her world and occasionally participate, insofar as she permits them, though they never really understand it or her.

And yet, Alden seems to view the opera partly as a comedy, or at least has come to do so. (I do not remember this registering last time around, but that may just be my failure to recollect.) Karel Čapek’s original play is a comedy, though I cannot claim acquaintance with it. That has never, however, seemed to me to be the spirit in which Janáček prepared his opera. There are surreal happenings, to be sure, but playing Marty for laughs, as Amanda Roocroft often did, and turning Baron Prus into something of a Carry On figure, embarrassed and embarrassing in his underwear, does the work no favours. Moreover, one needs a good directorial reason to disregard the instruction that Kristina burn the Makropulos document, red Glückliche Hand-like glow of burning or otherwise; I am not sure that there is one here.

Roocroft’s performance was loudly acclaimed. During the first act, she impressed considerably. However, a reading that threatened to degenerate into farce seemed, at least to me, to undersell the nobility in the role. Diction and intonation deteriorated too. There was certainly enthusiasm to her portrayal; one could not fault her for effort, but it increasingly seemed misapplied. Cheryl Barker first time around gave a more complete account. Casting in general, however, remained strong. Andrew Shore and Alasdair Elliott provided subtly coloured and differentiated readings of Kolanatý and Vítek, whilst Christopher Turner and Laura Mitchell proved youthfully ardent as Janek and Kristina. There was strength, but strength aptly born of bluster, in Ashley Holland’s Prus. The serving roles – Cleaning Lady, Stage Technician, and Chambermaid – were characterised, some might say caricatured, with musical and verbal aplomb by Morag Boyle, William Robert Allenby, and Susanna Tudor-Thomas. Perhaps, though, someone – whoever issued instructions to this effect – should be informed that cod-Northern accents does not always sit well with operatic vocalism, and, more seriously, that geography does not equate to class. It was worth attending for Ryland Davies’s splendidly acted Hauk-Šendorf alone.

Sir Richard Armstrong often drove the ENO Orchestra fiercely. There was no want of dramatic verve in his reading; it echoed Mackerras quite strongly in fact. There were, moreover, moments, however fragile, in which Janáček’s musical phantasmagoria could truly beguile, supreme amongst which must be the waltzing harmonics that enable E.M. to reach the climax of her tale. The orchestra was on excellent form, strings especially sweet, and the full head given to pounding kettledrums dramatic rather than melodramatic. Perhaps most impressive was Armstrong’s handling of Janáček’s fragmentary technique. Snatches become parts of a whole, but the alchemy, like that of Makropulos’s formula, is mysterious. One knows it when one hears it – and one heard it here.

One other thing, though: Janáček objected to the freedom with which Max Brod prepared his German translation for the first German performance under Josef Krips; Brod was compelled to make many alterations. I dread to think what the composer would have made of this English version by Norman Tucker. One can argue about the merits or otherwise of opera in translation, especially since the advent of surtitles at the Coliseum, but if the libretto is to be translated, something that captures the spirit and perhaps even the sound of the original better than this would be welcome. Jarring colloquialisms appear thick and fast: ‘Cor Blimey!’ inevitably puts one in mind of Dick Van Dyke. It was difficult to discern any effort to provide a substitute for the Czech speech rhythms that so colour the composer’s music. Still, performances were of a high standard – and ultimately, the play’s the thing.

Katya Kabanova, English National Opera, 15 March 2010

(sung in English)

The Coliseum

Katerina Kabanova – Patricia Racette
Marfa Kabanicha – Susan Bickley
Varvara – Anna Grevelius
Boris Grigoryevich – Stuart Skelton
Vanya Kudrjas – Alfie Boe
Tikhon Ivanich Kabanov – John Graham-Hall
Dikoy – Clive Bayley
Kuligin – Nicholas Folwell

David Alden (director)
Charles Edwards (set designs)
Jon Morrell (costumes)
Adam Silverman (lighting)
Maxine Braham (movement)

Orchestra and Chorus of the English National Opera
Mark Wigglesworth (conductor)

What a week for Janáček in London, with Katya Kabanova opening here at the Coliseum, and Covent Garden’s revival of The Cunning Little Vixen opening on Friday! It is a pity, both in itself and for the sake of contrast, that the latter will be sung in English, but let us remain with ENO for the moment. One misses the Czech, even if one does not understand it: for music so dependent upon the language’s speech rhythms, it would be vain to pretend that there is not significant loss. The translation employed is on the plain side too. Still, there is far more justification on ENO’s part; opera in the vernacular is, after all, the company’s raison d’être.

David Alden’s powerful Jenůfa for the same company is succeeded by a successful, if not quite unforgettable Katya. There seems to be no particular Konzept, but an approach not significantly different from the earlier production highlights the nasty claustrophobia of the community: vaguely the time of composition, I think, but not distant from the ‘original’ setting. More than once, I thought of Peter Grimes, though Janáček’s opera is of course the superior work. What Alden manages to do is to stress the nature of what is, as ever with Janáček, akin to a spoken play, and to a considerable extent permit the story to tell itself. There is no distracting folksiness, quite out of place in this work; instead, there is a degree of abstraction, for which Charles Edwards’s stunning set designs and Adam Silverman’s equally stunning lighting must receive a great deal of credit. Deep shadows are cast throughout and the contrast between those of Katya and Varvara in the Kabanicha’s house, is telling, likewise the way in which they merge to form a single figure at prayer (even though neither of the characters is praying on stage). The starkness of the sets shading from grey into darkness packs a powerful dramatic punch, even if it means that the house is unfeasibly large and minimalist. The icon on the wall does its job, though, and it is a powerful moment when its owner turns it around, so that it will not see what she is about to get up to with Dikoy: a properly sado-masochistic, alcohol-fuelled relationship with a history, but never wearyingly explicit. Nevertheless, I could not help wondering: is Alden becoming, or has he already become, something of a conservative? Not that it especially matters, but there is nothing provocative here.

Mark Wigglesworth impresses in the pit. The opening bars were slower, more Romantically yearning than I can recall hearing, and he certainly exerts command over the generally fine ENO orchestra (a few slips aside). The razor-sharp rhythms that Sir Charles Mackerras brings to the composer were not always quite there, but this remained a creditable performance. For whatever reason, Janáček seems to bring out the best in the company. And who would complain about that?

I wondered to begin with about Patricia Racette, her opening lines proving somewhat tremulous. But she inhabited the role of Katya, made us sympathise, drew us in, and led us to the final tragedy. Her acting and singing were as one, so to concern oneself too much with odd vocal imperfections is arguably to miss the point. Her diction varied, however, and in this, she was not alone – a particular issue for me, given that the titles were not visible from my seat. (Again, if one cannot hear every word clearly, why not sing in the original language, and permit the sounds at least to be correct? And is not the provision of titles an admission of defeat?) There are no such problems however with Susan Bickley’s magnificent Kabanicha. In many ways, this is not a rewarding role; one can only guess at what has made her the way she is, given the lack of even the slightest glimmer of humanity. This is not the Kostelnička. (Perhaps she once too was a Katya? Who knows?) But her stentorian malevolence can rarely if ever have been so searingly portrayed as here. Felicity Palmer was equally fine last time at Covent Garden. Both artists elicited a terrifying chill upon the apparently unmoved thanking of friends and neighbours for their kindness. Anna Grevelius and Alfie Boe made for a splendid pair of successful lovers; their carefree attitude contrasted strongly with the twin complexities of Katya and Boris, whose vacillation Stuart Skelton captured to a tee. John Graham-Hall’s mess – in a positive sense! – of a Tikhon was exemplary: it is no easy thing to portray weakness on stage without resorting to caricature. Clive Bayley’s Dikoy seemed, not unreasonably, to have stepped straight out of Mussorgsky’s catalogue of mendicants: no subtlety there, but it is not clear that the role invites subtlety.

And thank goodness ENO had the dramatic integrity to present the work without intervals! To have to repair to the bar between acts is utterly unwarranted, yet all too often financial reasons seem to win out. To remain in the theatre throughout makes for the requisite intensity of experience, despite audience chattering that too often endured into the dramatic presentation. (Coughers, I regret to say, were out in strength, nowhere more so than a few bars in.)

Elektra, Royal Opera, 15 November 2008

This should be read as an appendix to my principal review. I was fortunate enough to attend Elektra again and found that a very good performance had become a great one. Each of the singers was at least as good and most were even better, especially Johan Reuter, who sounded almost Wanderer-like upon his mysterious arrival. (We truly heard things through Elektra's ears here.) Susan Bullock was outstanding in the title role. Where, on the first night, her dance - and her accompanying words - did not quite come off, here they did, in a shocking yet inevitable ecstasy. Anne Schwanewilms's excellent performance - her diction was better this time around - reminds me that I did not mention Chrysothemis's weird, twisted, Frau-ohne-Schatten-ish obsession with marriage and children, played upon by Elektra in extremely nasty yet credible fashion. For this, Schwanewilms and director, Charles Edwards should be credited. Rarely can 'normality' have seemed so abnormal; Chrysothemis's transformation by the final scene thereby seems all the more credible.

Most transformed was Sir Mark Elder's conducting. Never having conducted Elektra before, it is now clear that he still had a little way to go on the first night. The Wagnerian inheritance was now clearer than ever. Everything now sounded 'right'; the Recognition Scene no longer dragged and balances appeared to have been reconsidered. (I wonder whether sitting in the amphitheatre rather than in the stalls made a difference too. The sound may be more distanced but the blend may be enhanced.) Indeed, there was a far stronger modernistic bent to the sounds and blends being produced - almost Boulezian at times. (What we lost when Wieland Wagner died prematurely, not least since he and Boulez had plans to perform Salome, Elektra, and Ariadne auf Naxos!) Yet there was also a lightness of touch that no longer seemed underplayed, but part of a long-term strategic, symphonic plan. The oft-quoted line from Strauss as to how one should hear Mendelssohnian fairy-music made as much sense as I can recall. This was a truly marvellous performance!

Elektra, Royal Opera, 8 November 2008

Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

Elektra – Susan Bullock
Chrysothemis – Anne Schwanewilms
Klytemnestra – Jane Henschel
Orest – Johan Reuter
First Maid – Frances McCafferty
Second Maid – Monika-Evelin Liiv
Third Maid – Kathleen Wilkinson
Fourth Maid – Elizabeth Woolett
Fifth Maid – Eri Nakamura
Overseer – Miriam Murphy
Young Servant – Alfie Boe
Confidante – Louise Armit
Trainbearer – Dervla Ramsy
Orest’s tutor – Vuyani Mlinde
Aegisth – Frank von Aken
Old servant – Jeremy White

Charles Edwards (director, set designer, and lighting)
Brigitte Reiffenstuel (costumes)
Leah Hausman (choreography)

The Orchestra of the Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera Chorus (chorus master: Renata Balsadonna)
Sir Mark Elder (conductor)

This is my third Elektra within a year, having also seen productions in Berlin and in Munich. To think that I once worried about the effect that too much Mahler might have upon me! As with Mahler, albeit unnervingly without the catharsis, deepening knowledge of the work has served only to heighten my fascination and admiration. The Royal Opera’s revisiting of Charles Edwards’s production – Edwards rightly dislikes the term ‘revival’, although in some cases, it can sadly be all too appropriate – has much to commend it, as did the two German performances.

Edwards’s sets give an excellent impression of the corruption and depravity of Mycenae. It is not excessive, which must be a temptation, and is therefore all the more powerful. Antiquity and the early twentieth century – a little after the time of composition – are both suggested without being fetishised. Whatever Elektra is ‘about’, it is certainly not about historical ‘accuracy’; indeed, given how closely Hofmannsthal follows Sophocles, it is remarkable how little of the latter’s politics remain. And although the activity of archaeology is perhaps suggested by the bust of Agamemnon – chillingly kissed by Elektra – and by signs of digging, there is no dry archaeological positivism to the scene, which stands dialectically related to the dancing on a volcano of the 1920s. Had they not learned from the War (whether Trojan or Great)? Of course not. Violence is endemic though not unduly exaggerated. (David McVicar could have learned a great deal from this before his sensationalist Salome, as he could have done from Edwards’s intelligent rather than arbitrary suggestions of the interwar years.) The treatment of the Fifth Maid – a fine portrayal from Eri Nakamura, a Jette Parker Young Artist – by the other maids and Miriam Murphy’s splendidly horrifying Overseer really sets the scene for what is to come. The degrading – fatal? – punishment that follows horrifies still more. What helps to make this so powerful is the partial restoration of the political that Edwards so successfully achieves. He reminds us throughout that this is not simply a madhouse but the palace of Mycenae. We see from time to time other members of the household and the effect that the degeneration of the ruling house has upon the ruled, most crucially of all in the final bloodbath, in which the palace wall is lifted to reveal the carnage that has been unleashed, the latest – and, we must hope, the last – instalment of Thyestes’s curse upon the house of Atreus. This is not of course the only way to present Elektra but it is an interesting and valid route to take.

Sir Mark Elder’s reading stood distant from the blood-and-gore, priapism-a-minute approach of Sir Georg Solti. We heard a great deal of detail in the score, including some delectable woodwind lines, impeccably played by an orchestra on top form. The baleful Wagnerian brass sounded, rightly, as if it had originated in Fafner’s lair. Dance rhythms surfaced throughout, reminding us that Elektra is not only the high watermark of Strauss’s expressionism but also paves the way for Der Rosenkavalier (which is, in turn, a far nastier opera than nostalgics could ever understand.) There were times, however, when I thought that a little more menace, violence even, would not have gone amiss. One can tend towards the analytical without the occasional loss to the dramatic that we heard here. In Strauss, Christoph von Dohnányi is an example in this and so many respects, although Semyon Bychkov also impressed during the production’s initial run. In a generally well-paced account, the crucial Recognition Scene dragged somewhat, lessening the dramatic release upon the realisation of Orest and Elektra that they have finally been reunited. That said, it was a treat to hear the final scene develop rather than scream throughout. Even necrophiliac orgies of destruction need to gather pace. Moreover, the musical echoes here of the final scene of Tristan can rarely have registered so clearly.

The cast was impressive, not least in the smaller roles, all of which were well characterised, as well as well directed. Johan Reuter started somewhat anonymously as Orest – although, I suppose, he is anonymous to Elektra at this point – but his portrayal acquired greater strength. Frank von Aken was no Siegfried Jerusalem, to whose cameo we were treated last time; by the same token, he was no mere caricature in the role of Aegisth and he acted well, disturbingly well. Jane Henschel not only spitted malevolence and terrifying, jubilant hysteria, the latter upon the news of Orest’s death. She also imparted a sense of vulnerability, of the humanity that must at one time have existed in Klytämnestra. This made the sheer evil displayed at her last both shocking and credible. Anne Schwanewilms made a sympathetic Chrysothemis, as she had previously. One could forgive the occasional occlusion of the words – inevitable to some extent – given her beauty of tone and security of line. And Susan Bullock was a fine Elektra. She fully inhabited the role musically and dramatically, her fine diction and intonation permitting a more sophisticated portrayal than the screaming harpy of caricature. Desperation and damage, resilience and revenge: one understood how all of these feelings and more arose from the murder of her father, and beyond that from the terrible feud between the two sons of Pelops. In this, as in so much else, Bullock’s Elektra and Edwards’s Elektra were at one: at the service of Strauss and Hofmannsthal, yet nevertheless, and indeed consequently, engaged in imaginative recreation.