Every household has its routines, especially the accursed house of Atreus, nucleus of Greek tragedy. At sunset each day, Elektra howls in grief for her father, Agamemnon, murdered years earlier by her mother, Klytämnestra. Bored housemaids watch and sneer. Richard Strauss’s 1909 opera, to a libretto of exceptional richness by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, keeps the focus simple. Family niceties (past infanticide and the like) are swept away. This daughter has one purpose: to kill her mother and avenge her father. Her daily stomp of mourning – graceless, elegiac and vehement as portrayed by Nina Stemme, one of the great Elektras of her generation, in the Royal Opera House’s new production – is an unholy dance of death.
In his last new production as music director of the Royal Opera House, Antonio Pappano has once again collaborated with Christof Loy, who directed Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos in 2002 at the start of Pappano’s long tenure. Designed by Johannes Leiacker, with lighting by Olaf Winter, the look is secession Vienna at the time of Elektra’s composition: a soot-dirty palace courtyard and flight of steps; a basement where lowly staff dwell; illuminated upper windows past which glamorous figures in dinner dress glide without purpose. The sets give strong context to Elektra’s world, as seen by the opera’s creators in the early 20th century, when Sigmund Freud’s theories were fresh and the first world war was still out of view.
Even more inventive than Salome (1905) before it, Elektra is an unyielding work. Inexorable, noisy, riven with chromatic battles, the score flashes between dark and light, major and minor, high drama and yet greater extremes of emotion. Using every means in his armoury – who knows what they are; not abracadabras but persuasion and hard graft – Pappano drew playing of immaculate variety from the enlarged ROH orchestra. The clue to this opera is its musical polarities. Shadows, whispers and chamber-like delicacy allow for depth and mercy: brief waltzes that sweeten a landscape steeped in blood; yawns and yowls of low woodwind when Klytämnestra describes her night terrors; wisps of harp or solo strings when Elektra realises her hideous, obsessive desire is about to be fulfilled. Every detail was audible here, lovingly etched and nurtured.
Into this sonic panoply, the voices of three women – Elektra, her sister Chrysothemis, and Klytämnestra – are forged, almost hammered, woven into the texture. Vocal problems were evident on first night, but did not dent the rewards of the whole. Karita Mattila’s superbly imperious, bejewelled Klytämnestra lacked heft, but so does this liverish, guilt-ridden murderess herself. Stemme had more specific difficulties, which she at once recognised and negotiated with top professionalism. These two stars, each now having tipped into their seventh decade, bring class and experience to any stage. Sara Jakubiak made a striking Royal Opera debut, vocally triumphant, dramatically thoughtful as Chrysothemis, who dreams of motherhood and matricide in the same breath. Orest, the absent son, is unknowable in Strauss and Hofmannsthal’s reading: Łukasz Goliński played him exactly that way. As if designed to carry out a deed, he kills his mother and her lover, Ägisth, like a bloodied AI automaton.
The supporting cast had notable cameos: five maids, including Valentina Puskás; Lee Bisset as Overseer; and, in the slender male roles, Michael Gibson, Michael Mofidian, Charles Workman and Jeremy White. Before the second performance (Monday), Nina Stemme withdrew, citing illness. Her replacement, a regular Elektra in European houses, was the Lithuanian Ausrine Stundyte, making her house debut ahead of her intended first appearance next month as Tosca. By chance, for the experience of hearing Strauss’s orchestration played at this level once more, I had arranged to go again for my own interest. Admiration is the only response to anyone stepping in, with all the attendant risks, to a new production. Elektra is barely off the stage for the 100-minute duration.
The ROH was prepared for such an eventuality: Stundyte had rehearsal time with Loy before Christmas. Her voice is lighter, her performance more cat-like (as befits the text) than Stemme, whose interpretation is of a woman ravaged, bearing the weight of the world. With every excuse allowable, Stundyte only got into her vocal stride late on, especially after the recognition scene with Orest. I look forward to hearing her Tosca, in safer circumstances.
Pappano, on his night off, was in the capacity audience for Jenůfa (1904), in the second of two concert performances given by his new ensemble, the London Symphony Orchestra. Now LSO conductor emeritus, Simon Rattle led a sterling cast in the orchestra’s ongoing Leoš Janáček cycle (The Cunning Little Vixen is already out on LSO Live; Katya Kabanova is due for release next month). From the opening xylophone reveille – depicting the clattering mill wheel – to the brassy, terrifying volleys that end each act, the work unfurled with urgent momentum and intensity. In this tale of Moravian village life, Jenůfa’s illegitimate child brings shame to her pietistic stepmother, Kostelnička. Tragedy ensues. The opera concludes with fragile optimism and lessons in acceptance. Rampant with melodies, some of which surface for a few bars never to return, this masterpiece, with its singular, undefinable power, leaves the listener altered – on every hearing. Tomorrow, for any keen date spotter, will be 120 years exactly since Jenůfa’s premiere (21 January 1904, Mahen theatre, Brno).
Here too, the title role was sung, but with longer notice than for Elektra, by a replacement. Agneta Eichenholz, bringing a different balance to the ensemble, stood in for the steely-toned Asmik Grigorian. Eichenholz’s clear, bright tone, if not always the strongest in volume, conveyed the young mother’s heartbreak and vulnerability. As Števa, who abandons her, Nicky Spence – well suited to this repertoire – was alone in bringing his acting chops to the stage (this was not a semi-staging), supporting himself drunkenly on music stands and flexing his shoulders with oafish swagger.
Aleš Briscein’s Laca, first jealous then loyal in forgiveness, made terrific use of his shrill, gleaming high tones. Katarina Karnéus’s Kostelnička, dignified and pained, elicited unusual sympathy. Carole Wilson’s Grandmother and Claire Barnett-Jones’s Herdswoman/Barena, both characterful, spiced up the drama. The LSO chorus and orchestra gave their all, leader Benjamin Marquise Gilmore’s violin notably persuasive, but all instrumental solos superbly taken. Strings were well drilled. Violas, sitting on the outside of the cellos, took their limelight moments with outstanding stamina.
Let’s hear it for the looping intelligence and adaptability (not to mention any financial need) of Britain’s complex musical life, worth acknowledging in a week of this quality. As it happened, the LSO’s viola section guest leader, Jane Atkins, had played solo viola the previous night at Kings Place. The event was part of the opening weekend in the venue’s year-long Scotland Unwrapped series. Five members of Scottish Ensemble, including Atkins, joined forces with Jasdeep Singh Degun (sitar) and Harkiret Singh Bahra (tabla) for a quixotic programme spanning north Indian raga to Hildegard of Bingen. As Degun joked, he had misheard the medieval nun’s status of “abbess” as “abscess”. I’ve never been too certain about Hildegard’s sense of humour, and she certainly wasn’t Scottish, but she would surely have found this union of musics pretty celestial.
Star ratings (out of five)
Elektra ★★★★
Jenůfa ★★★★
Scottish Ensemble with Jasdeep Singh Degun ★★★★
