Elektra, A savage opera of death and vengeance

Westpac Opera in Concert
Richard Strauss, Elektra
Auckland Philharmonia
Auckland Town Hall
August 6th

Auckland audiences have had a good dose of troubled, romantic music recently with performances of Mahler’s Symphony No 5 and his song Cycle “Das Lied Von der Erde”.

This Friday they will they will have treated to the savage romanticism of the Richard Strauss opera Elektra which ties in nicely with the Mahler work of last week as they were both composed around the same time at the beginning of the twentieth century. 

The opera is an adaptation of Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s play Electra, which was first performed in Germany in 1903. The play is based on Electra written by the Greek dramatist, Sophocles. The story focuses on the consequences of the murder of Agamemnon.

Electra is a study in mental disturbance and obsession. It uses the psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, which had been published only a few years before von Hofmannsthal wrote the play. Electra also employs powerful, lurid imagery that gives vivid insight into the disturbed minds of Electra and Clytemnestra, and it moves single-mindedly to its violent conclusion.

Reputed to be the most beautiful woman of the ancient world, Helen was seduced away from her husband, Menelaus, by the Trojan Prince Paris, who brought her to Troy. Enraged, Menelaus came for help to his brother Agamemnon, King of Mycenae. Agamemnon, as commander-in-chief of the Greek forces, assembled many troops and 1,000 ships to attack Troy.

The goddess Artemis, displeased with Agamemnon, caused a constant east wind to blow, thus preventing his ships from sailing east toward Troy. Soothsayers told Agamemnon that only if he sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia would the wind subside. He sacrificed her, and the Greeks sailed for Troy. But the sacrifice of her daughter had turned Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife, against her husband.

After nine years of war, Troy fell. When Agamemnon returned from Troy, Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus murdered him with an axe. They sent away Agamemnon’s young son, Orestes, to prevent the possibility of his avenging his father’s death, but his two sisters, Elektra and Chysothemis, remain in Mycenae. Elektra has been punished by years of physical abuse and deprivation, as she awaits the return of her brother to avenge their father’s death.

The work embodies the idea of retributive justice, of blood for blood. An act of wrongdoing can be put right only by a similar act carried out against the original perpetrator. The sole focus of the work is therefore on vengeance and nothing distracts from this theme: the killing of Agamemnon has created a wound that will not heal; it has perverted the natural order of things, which must be put right.

The opera is set in ancient Mycenae. It opens in the courtyard of the palace of Agamemnon, murdered king of Mycenae. Young women comment on the wild behavior of Elektra, Agamemnon's eldest daughter. When they have gone, Elektra bemoans her father's murder at the hands of her mother, Clytemnestra, and her mother's lover, Aegisthus. Calling on her father's spirit, she vows vengeance.

She is interrupted by her younger sister, Chrysothemis, who urges Elektra to give up her obsession with revenge so they both can lead normal lives. As noises from within the palace herald the approach of Clytemnestra, the girl rushes off, leaving Elektra to face their mother alone. The queen staggers in; drugs, loss of sleep and fear of retribution have made a wreck of her. She appeals to Elektra to tell her what kind of sacrifice to the gods will give her peace. Her nightmares will cease, Elektra responds, when the blood of an impure woman is shed.

Challenged to name the victim, Elektra screams it is Clytemnestra herself, and that she and her banished brother Orestes will wield the ax. Clytemnestra is shaken, but when her Confidante runs in and whispers something, her mood changes abruptly. Laughing maniacally, Clytemnestra leaves her puzzled daughter.

The mystery is explained when Chrysothemis reappears with news that Orestes is dead. Stunned, Elektra tells her sister she must now help kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. When the girl pulls away in terror and runs off, Elektra starts to dig for the buried axe that killed Agamemnon.

She is interrupted by a stranger who says he has come to inform Clytemnestra of Orestes's death. When Elektra reveals her name, he tells her Orestes lives. Servants come and kiss his hand. The dogs of the house know me, he says, but not my own sister. Crying his name, Elektra falls into Orestes’s arms and tells him she has lived only for his return.

Their reunion is cut short when Orestes is summoned before Clytemnestra. Hardly has he entered the palace when a scream is heard and Elektra, anxiously waiting, knows he has killed their mother. Aegisthus now arrives, and Elektra joyfully lights his way into the palace, where he too meets his doom. While the halls resound with tumultuous confusion, Elektra, transported, begins an ecstatic dance. But the release of so much pent-up hate and joy proves too much for her; when Chrysothemis returns, Elektra falls lifeless.