With Richard Strauss’ “Elektra”, the Salzburg Fest­iv­al de­liv­ers a thor­oughly im­press­ive new pro­duc­tion that the Vi­enna daily Kur­i­er calls the “best new op­era pro­duc­tion of 2010”. Reap­ing ac­claim are the top-qual­ity vo­cal­ists as well as the mighty stage set and the sens­it­ive dir­ec­tion of Nikolaus Lehnhoff.

Por­tray­ing Elektra is Swedish sop­rano Iréne The­or­in, who in­jects as­ton­ish­ing dra­mat­ic power in­to her role. “Im­press­ive in every re­spect”, wrote the Frank­furter Allge­meine Zei­tung about her role de­but here. Inter- na­tion­ally ac­claimed Wag­n­er sing­er Wal­traud Mei­er also gives her spec­tac­u­lar, com- mand­ing stage de­but here as Klytämnes­tra. They are com­ple­men­ted by an out­stand­ing Eva-Maria West­broek as Chryso­themis, and a force­ful René Pa­pe as Orest.

Nikolaus Lehnhoff’s many years of ex­peri-en­ce on the world’s greatest stages are clearly vis­ible in his dir­ec­tion of the sing­ers: mov­ing about a sin­is­ter, for­bid­ding set bathed in sug­gest­ively chan­ging light­ing, the vo­cal­ists are treated as stage act­ors, whose ex­press­ive ges­tures are cap­tured with par­tic-ular vivid­ness and im­me­di­acy by the cam­era. Lead­ing the Wien­er Phil­har­monik­er is Daniele Gatti. Al­tern­at­ing between late 19^th-cen­tury lyr­i­cism and early 20^th-cen­tury ex­cess, he clearly em­phas­izes the dual con­flicts at the heart of the work.

When “Elektra” was premiered in 1909, audi­ences could hardly be­lieve their ears: jar­ring dis­son­ances, mon­strous or­ches­tral build-ups, out­bursts of raw pas­sion, Wag­n­eri­an de­mands on the lead vo­cal­ist – this was Ex­pres­sion­ist mu­sic in its most rad­ic­al form. In their first artist­ic col­lab­or­a­tion, Strauss and his lib­ret­tist Hugo von Hof­mannsth­al packed the prim­or­di­al power of the an­cient Greek myth in­to a one-ac­ter that lit­er­ally ex­plodes upon the stage. No won­der today, “Elektra” ranks among the un­dis­puted mas­ter­pieces of the pop­u­lar com­poser.

Iréne The­or­in, Elektra
Wal­traut Mei­er, Klytämnes­tra
Eva-Maria West­broek, Chryso­themis
Robert Gam­bill, Ae­gisth
René Pa­pe, Orest

Wien­er Phil­har­monik­er
Daniele Gatti, con­duct­or
Konzer­tver­ein­i­gung Wien­er Staat­so­per­n­chor
Thomas Lang, chor­us mas­ter