‘Elektra’ closes Met Opera’s HD season
A sure sign of summer’s approach is the realization that this weekend’s Metropolitan Opera HD telecast of “Elektra” is the final one of the 2015-2016 series. If the length of several of the Met productions has deterred some from attending these spectacular HD events, note that the running time of “Elektra” is under two hours.
This production of the Strauss masterpiece is a collaborative venture by multiple opera companies, with French director Patrice Chereau and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen collaborating in the initial performances at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Sadly, director Chereau died before the production could reach the Met. The reviews, however, say that his brilliant artistry survived the journey beautifully.
Depending on the audience’s background, they may have encountered members of Elektra’s family in the works of Homer, Sophocles or Aeschylus. In Strauss’ telling of the culmination of this story, it is important for the audience to remember that at the end of the long Trojan War, the Greeks lacked the winds to take their ships home and Agamemnon made a deal that involved the death of Iphigenia, his daughter with Klytemnestra, and thus set into motion a tragic concatenation.
In this highly-praised production, set in the courtyard of the murdered Agamemnon’s palace, Nina Stemme is Elektra, fixated on revenge against her mother Klytemnestra (Waltraud Meier) and yearning for the arrival of her brother Orest (Eric Owens).
The HD presentation of this powerful drama should draw crowds this weekend as I have yet to read a squeak of criticism about this production and the powerful lesson that it carries. Were it not for the clamor resulting from the recent retirement of Met artistic director James Levine, I suspect that there would be even more accolades surrounding this classic tale of the corrosive nature of revenge. There are lessons here for us all.
‘Elektra’
When: 12:55 p.m. April 30
Where: Douglass Theatre, 355 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., and the Galleria Mall Stadium Cinemas 15, 2980 Watson Blvd., Warner Robins
Cost: $24 adults, $20 seniors and students
Information: metopera.org/hdlive, 478-742-2000
This story was originally published April 27, 2016 at 5:31 PM with the headline "‘Elektra’ closes Met Opera’s HD season."