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Strauss: Elektra

0.0 110 mins Music   1980
Deutsche Grammophon   The Metropolitan Opera  
Director(s): David Stivender Herbert Graf

It's hard to imagine confirmed Straussians not wanting this starry Metropolitan Opera performance of Elektra. Strauss and his librettist, Hugo von Hofmannstahl, transformed Sophocles' take on Homer's tale into a harrowing opera noir. Elektra lives for one reason, to kill her mother, Klytämnestra, and her stepfather, Aegisth, the murderers of her father, Agamemnon. In contrast to Elektra's vengeful obsession, her sister Chrysothemis desires to get on with life. When their long-missing brother, Orestes, returns to do the deed, Elektra celebrates with a dance of death and, her sole purpose in life fulfilled, dies. Strauss joined the hermetic plot to music of the utmost opulence, violent and yearning by turns, evoking the cardinal principles of Greek tragedy - pity and terror.

Casts of Strauss: Elektra

Mignon Dunn

as Clitemnestra

Birgit Nilsson

as Elektra

Leonie Rysanek

as Crisotemis

Robert Nagy

as Egisto

Donald McIntyre

as Orestes

John Cheek

as Tutor de Orestes

James Levine

as Conductor

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