Elektra is one of the most concentrated of Richard Strauss’s operas: leading roles of intensity and power, dramatic confrontations and virtuoso orchestral playing. The familiar classical tale is one of intense love and hate in a family riven by intrigue and violence, focussed on the daughter who plans the death of her mother for plotting the murder of her father.
The opera was first performed in 1909, and the political and social fractures in Europe at that time, seen through the prism of emerging concepts of psychology, provide a rich subtext in Charles Edwards’s production, which receives its first revival since the 2003 premiere.
The acclaimed dramatic soprano Susan Bullock takes on the extremely demanding title role of the vengeful daughter driven by wild passions who ultimately dances herself to death in the ecstatic delirium of success. Johan Reuter, Jane Henschel and Anne Schwanewilms are also international exponents of this repertory, and with Covent Garden regular and favourite Mark Elder as conductor of the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, the vocal and orchestral fireworks that Strauss demands will certainly ignite.
Musical and theatrical genius combined with the thrill of live performance make Strauss’s Elektra an essential experience for lovers of opera as great drama.