Götz Friedrich – Elektra (1981)
Richard Strauss’ opera is featured in a landmark collaboration by conductor Karl Boehm and director Goetz Friedrich. Boehm died shortly after the film was completed. Featured soloists include Astrid Varnay, Leonie Rysanek, Catarina Ligendza, Hans Beirer ad Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, among others. There is also a full-length documentary included in this program.
Filmed on location on the outskirts of Vienna, director Gotz Friedrich vividly creates the staggering impact of the tragedy of vengeance. Karl Boehm conducts the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
Smorg’s Review from epinions. com:
Richard Strauss’ Elektra (libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal after Sophocles’s tragedy) is an acquired taste. It is beautiful continuous dissonance music (no song… just a lot of declamations and sung anguish. An intoxicating realization of musical nightmare) that features possibly the hardest music in all of opera for the the dramatic soprano lead of Elektra (this role is a confirmed voice killer). It is also hard to stage… but Götz Friedrich pulled the rabbit out of the hat and this film fits the music to a tee.
This is a story set in Mycenae, the ancient Greek island right before Mozart’s Idomeneo. It is a short opera containing just 1 act and running about 90 minutes long. On his way to participate in the Trojan war, Agamemnon was stranded on the island or Aulis for lack of favorable wind. He offered Neptune the sacrifice of his eldest daughter Iphigenie in return for wind to sail on. Klytämnestra (his contralto wife and mother of 3 soprani daughters: Iphigenie, Elektra, Chrysothemis; and a baritone son Orestes) avenged her daughter by killing her own husband (with the help of her tenor lover Agisthus) with a hatchet. The surviving kids disagree with their mother, however, and Orestes is exiled while Elektra isolates herself and spends her days living like a dog in the court yard, fuming and wishing her mother death (this is one mentally disturbed family… what can I say?). Anyhow, at this point in the story the opera begins.
Set in gloomy and rainy ancient Greece, it is as dark as opera gets and horridly wonderful (makes me wonder if that dripping wet ghost from ‘Ringu’ horror film was borrowed from this Elektra). A story of a woman who destroyed herself and those around her with her all-consuming desire for revenge. In order for this opera to sail, one must have 2 terrific dramatic soprani who can really act play the lead roles of Elektra and Klytämnestra. The directer Götz Friedrich had a cast to die for.
Performance:
This is Leonie Rysanek’s only performance in the lead role of Elektra (her portrayal of the sister Chrysothemis is the gold standard for that role, she later took on the role of Klytämnestra and became the only person to ever performed all 3 female leads of this opera), and how lucky we are that it is on tape! Her beautiful high notes are as full of texture as they are powerful… giving us that often lost feature of the refined high born princess who had fallen to the depth instead of just the usual demented angry woman. This being a film where they act to the studio-recorded singing by the same cast, Leonie is blissfully free of any off-pitch note (though a few are documented on the ‘making of’ documentary on the 2nd DVD).
The great Astrid Varnay (the gold standard Elektra in her hay days) is wonderful as Klytämnestra, Elektra’s mother. Always a sensitive dramatist, Ms Varnay gives us a multi-dimensional Klytämnestra. The queen is in charge of the court of Mycenae, but at the same time she is vulnerable. She loves her daughter but is afraid of her. That rough edge that forced her away from her soprano career in her prime is a perfect fit for this mezzo/contralto role.
Caterina Ligendza and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau are very good as Chrysothemis and Orestes. They are over-shadowed by the 2 female leads, tho. But who wouldn’t be when the two are Rysanek and Varnay?
This was also Karl Böhm’s last work as conductor. He died shortly before it was finished and never saw the end product. What a legacy to leave for him… he brings out all the conflicting emotions in Strauss’ music wonderfully. The DVD also comes with a bonus documentary disc of how this film was made. Great stuff. Must have for opera fan… even if you don’t take to Strauss’ dissonance. I don’t much either, but the film fits this music so well and the singing and acting so haunting I was glued to the TV the entire time and re-view it often.
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