Strauss, R: Elektra - DVD video

“It's a change to see a production of Strauss's and Hofmannsthal's psychotic masterwork that's not weighted with greater German gloom, louring Second World War-derived imagery and cakes of lurid make-up. Martin Kušej directs people well, and since Elektra is largely an opera of dialogues, his work (all closely derived from the text) demands attention.
Eva Johansson's Elektra is a hooded tomboy with definite Asbo leanings; she has to be on full throttle for this role but both Dohnányi's orchestra and TDK's engineers are kind to her.
Melanie Diener, a consummate singing actress, locates the hard, hard role of Chrysothemis somewhere between Victoria Beckham and Brechtian alienation: every entry, every new event is as surprising to her as a goldfish going round its bowl.
Marjana Lipovšek presents their mother as a complex of confused identities, eschewing both in voice and acting any melodramatic harridan tendencies. As their brother, Alfred Muff survives a dreadful first 'disguise' wig to present a revenger of quiet, un-neurotic determination.
Equally original is Rudolf Schasching's lecherous groper of an Aegisthus, convincingly deceived when Elektra plays up to his libido.
The action takes places in a dangerously uneven, hillock-strewn courtyard, reached by many doors. There is much cavorting by the smaller roles: the maids (and one token transvestite) dress up as…maids (French) for Aegisthus' pleasure, while action or tension in the palace (Strauss's 'interludes') is illustrated by door-to-door crosses by a large troupe of actors in various states of ecstasy, undress, axecarrying, etc. They've not been terribly well directed and the effect only really works when the (false) news of Orestes' death sets off Klytemnestra's laugh. At the end, when revenge is done, the girl extras perform a dance in Las Vegas-style frillies – weird, but suitably unnerving.
Dohnányi's old master's approach to the score goes for a long pay-off rather than whipping up the tension from the word go, employing a wide range of tempi and dynamics and stressing the modernity of the score. Both the Vienna staging of Harry Kupfer (with Claudio Abbado) and the studio film of Götz Friedrich (with Karl Böhm and a veteran stellar cast) remain indispensable.
But, for an alternative vision allied to a close, human reading of the text, the new performance, while not quite the sum of its parts, makes for intelligent viewing.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010

“With Nilsson’s intense, overwhelming singing. . . it was a triumph for her…Leonie Rysanek is one of the few sopranos who can almost match Miss Nilsson note for note. . . Levine’s work was superb” –The New York Times

“Here's a treat for Expressionism junkies...dominated by Theorin's extraordinary heroine, a Brunnhilde gone seriously to seed, a real tour de force of concentrated energy, vocal stamina and dramatic power, who occupies most of the very well-made film in close-up. Daniele Gatti gets marvellous sounds from the Vienna Philharmonic, all the score's fever and neurosis but also its tenderness... There's really not a weak link here” Opera Now, Summer 2011 *****

“Elektra's Freudian creepiness constantly attracts sensationalist productions, so it's a pleasure to report just how fine this 2010 Salzburg staging is. Daniele Gatti's conducting is powerful enough, but never loses sight of the score's eerie lyricism and sombre glow, which Nikolaus Lehnhoff's staging embodies to atmospherically...Among Elektras on DVD this, along with Karl Böhm's historical performance, must rank among the best” BBC Music Magazine, October 2011 *****

“The series was one of the last intelligent contributions to classical music by British television and, even by 1996, one suspects that only a musician of Rattle's stature and determination could have got it made… The line is unapologetically deterministic, the content confident enough to challenge: no room here for the second-rate or 'shamefully neglected'. The Tristan chord leads to the chromaticism of Elektra and inevitably to 12-tone music.” Gramophone Magazine, December 2005

“The performance has enormous intensity: both Marton's Elektra and Fassbaender's Klytämnestra stay long in the memory, and all the remaining characters are triumphtantly realised...Harry Jupfer's production is gripping.” Penguin Guide, 2010 edition ****