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| Elektra / Austin Lyric Opera : 3 of 5 | |
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1.20.2005
6:55 PM | Link |
 After so many years of being an opera-goer, I'm used to seeing the usual "hits" over and over again. So, I was pretty excited to see something new - Strauss' Elektra. I knew the basic story from Greek Tragedy class in college. Elektra is a daughter of King Agamemnon, and her mother the queen (plus her new boyfriend) kill the King before the opera begins, leaving Elektra as a sorrowful crazy woman obsessed with revenge. Eventually her brother takes care of all the killing, so the opera ends with some bizarre bloodbath madness! The sets and staging were well done, but the opera itself didn't impress me too much. It's only a one act opera with no intermission - I couldn't believe it when it was over in two hours! Of course, two hours with no intermission can be rough for an opera, especially when the music is as dramatic as Strauss - there are very few memoriable melodies, but instead lots of intense emotional motifs presented with increasingly distressing harmonies. I did appreciate the size of the orchestra, though, and I liked hearing things like xylophones accenting different phrases. All of the performers were wonderful, but with no characters to really identify with or fall in love with, seeing Elektra was much more academic than cathartic for me.
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