Richard Strauss’ Elektra is a work that rewards close attention. The richly woven tapestry of leitmotifs; the complex, symphonic underlay; the sharp, demanding vocal lines – and all compressed into an inexorable tragedy just one act long. A stripped-down setting makes sense, according to this logic, with roots both in antiquity and modernism, leaving our characters as if stranded, alone to face their emotions, and to let the music shine.
And shine the music does, under Jonathan Nott’s exuberant and generous direction, with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande seemingly enjoying the opera’s lavish instrumentation and rich chromatic feel. The contrasting sense of alienation, meanwhile, is given physical form in this new staging by first-time opera director Ulrich Rasche’s impressive steel monolith – eleven tonnes of metal which first saw the stage in Munich in 2018 when he directed Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s play on which Strauss' opera is based. It is a gigantic machine in perpetual motion towering over the action, a terrible mousetrap from which our cursed Atrides cannot escape.
The production at the Grand Théâtre de Genève is carried first and foremost by its strong central trio. Tanja Ariane Baumgartner is an imposing Klytaemnestra, her chest voice a little rough on those tricky low notes, but her presence strong and her “Ich habe keine guten Nächte”, a dark monologue on the weight of memory and the creeping devastation of trauma, deeply affecting. Meanwhile Sara Jakubiak gave a stunningly elegant performance as Chrysothemis. Her rich, warm, rounded soprano gave Elektra’s more hopeful sister nuance and sympathetic depths, and she was the cast’s most consummate physical performer, sufficiently at ease on the conveyor belts that we were able to forget the artifice of the setting. Her "Orest ist tot!" was goosebump-inducingly good. Finally, Ingela Brimberg, as Elektra, gave a compelling if uneven performance – her "Orest!", a welcome song for her lost brother and a rare moment of joy for our troubled heroine, was lovely, but she was ultimately let down by some issues with pitch and trouble with the scenography.
Which brings me back, inevitably, to the nuts and bolts of Rasche's staging. Visually and symbolically, the central machine packs a punch, and Michael Bauer’s striking lighting design creates an interesting interplay with this cold, immovable symbol to which the characters are literally shackled. Unfortunately, in practice, with real people shuffling and teeter-tottering around within the gears, it looks too physically gruelling to work well. You could argue, I suppose, that it makes sense for the humans trapped within this crush of rotating cylinders to appear as if they are fighting for their lives, but the staging seems, more often than not, to get in its own way. The processions of servants, meant to be lugubrious and inexorable, were lopsided and asymmetrical. More than one person stumbled – and who can blame them? At other times, the characters’ choreographed steps in time with the music gave the whole a bizarre chorus-line feel.
But the impact of this went far beyond this sort of detail. Orest (Károly Szemerédy) was so clearly in battle with the monolith throughout his entire time on stage – his interpretation pained, unsteady – that it distracted entirely from his vocal performance. Elektra seemed to have developed a kind of light-footed prancing style to deal with the problem, rather at odds with her character’s stony-faced thirst for blood. In her plain leggings, let down by the costume design as well and deprived of the more elaborate outfits that gave her mother and sister royal stature, she seemed more tentative and off-kilter than driven and sure, more nervous pageboy than murderous avenger. Oh, and the machine squeaks as well: with every terrible mechanical pivot, impressive to behold, it creaks and groans, more hamster wheel than Wheel of Fortune. As the opera progressed, I found myself wishing they would just switch the damn thing off so we could listen to these very talented musicians sing.
