A typographical Wunderkammer
Philipp Stölzl and Philip M. Krenn direct Elektra in Baden-Baden (*****) [live]
It is January 25, 1909, when Elektra is premiered in Dresden. Siegmund Freud has only just committed his "Studien über Hysterie" to paper. The clinical term "hysteria" is still brand new, and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, with his Elektra, has offered a theatrical response to the new view of man in psychoanalysis. A priestess without a temple, whose only gruesome ritual is the shedding of blood, becomes the protagonist of a study of hysteria. Hysteria born of a desire to die. Hofmannsthal becomes librettist to Richard Strauss, who now bestows on opera literature a piece steeped in pathological psychology. It is music that comes from the depths of Strauss' own psyche. Perhaps his torment, so well concealed by his outward nonchalance, was the realization that his mother was mentally disturbed.
By his own admission, Richard Strauss could set a dinner menu to music or musically portray a girl with red hair. In Elektra, he shows himself to be a brilliant illustrative orchestrator. The problem with Elektra is that so much happens in the orchestra that you miss a lot if you concentrate primarily on the soloists. In fact, you should watch every performance of Elektra twice especially when the classy members of the Berlin Philharmonic have taken their seats in the orchestra pit.
Is it possible to update this work without impunity and place it in a dysfunctional family closer to us than the clan of the Atrides? The last one who failed at this was Claus Guth in Frankfurt. One has to realize that the creators of Elektra were concerned with bringing back to life the demonic, ecstatic Greece of the 6th century. In other words, the Dionysian cult of ancient tragedy is composed into it. Zooming in on the inner psychodrama is the key to success. Philipp Stölzl's approach is entirely in the spirit of the production Herbert Wernicke made here in Baden-Baden (2010) with the Münchner Philharmoniker conducted by Christian Thielemann; for me it is still the reference on DVD. "Nothing happens, but what happens happens with suspense," Wernicke felt back then. And so it is here as well. The most startling thing about this performance is that in spite of so few scenographic resources, the entire drama can be brought to sound with such intensity, because of the intensified focus on the characters.
Stölzl designed a modular stage that consists of seven layers which mostly presents itself in the form of a monumental staircase. The layers can also shift into an oppressive claustrophobic space that is very effective. The staircase form is employed very evocatively: we see Clytemnestra appearing with four of her maidens who scatter like animals on the stairs, obeying the traumatized queen's every whim. We see Orest, on crutches and with a splinted leg, scrambling down and even up the stairs to complete the deed. We see a stunt double of the murdered Clytemnestra tumbling down the stairs. As in Tiago Rodrigues' Tristan und Isolde in Lille, the text is used as part of the set. This time the letters are projected in a graphic style typical of our Internet generation. It transforms the stage into a typographical Wunderkammer that never bores, never tires. It sharpens the appetite for the text which is not always easy to follow. Perhaps for this reason, the surtitles remain active.
The chatty handmaidens are seen at work with tubs and cleaning rags. Elektra is given a red feral wig, Chrysothemis, her worldly sister, a more demure page haircut. If in the first scene between the sisters the normal sensual desires of woman toward man are expressed, in the second scene a quasi-lesbian attitude of Electra toward her sister appears. And that is exactly how Stölzl directed the scene. Clytemnestra engages in a kind of choreography with four of her groveling handmaidens. And also with the big black cloak that she flings through the air gracefully and synchronously with the Straussian wave. And Stölzl makes her burst into laughter when she learns the fake news of Orestes' death. The chaotic double murder unfolds in a ballet of flashlights. The murders are extremely brutal and take place before our eyes. Orestes does not survive the matricide. His suicide leaves Chrysothemis orphaned. After achieving his life's goal, what remains for him and his sister Electra? Only the ultimate text fragment "Diese Zeit. Sie dehnt sich vor uns wie ein finstrer Schlund." (This time. It stretches before us like a dark abyss) is an addition by the director. Just an hour before, these words were spoken by Clytemnestra. It is a diagnosis that fits like a glove on our age ruled by psychopaths.
Big chunks of the Elektra part must be projected wide and majestically into the auditorium, preferably by a woman like a battleship, a soprano with a real Brünnhilde profile, in other words. Nina Stemme needs time to warm up. Only at the announcement of Orestes' death ("Es ist nicht wahr") does she take possession of the role with fantastic dramatic outbursts, of which I didn't know she still had it in her belt. But as so often: you hardly understand a word she sings. It is in a quasi-parlando style that Michaela Schuster sings Clytemnestra. She cleverly knows how to deal with her limitations. She nuances to the max and keeps her narration engaging and exciting. Petrenko very much takes back during the horror of her nightmares. With her generously flowing soprano, Elza van den Heever sings an attractive Chrysothemis especially during the lusty characterization of her "Weiberschicksal." Johan Reuter was able to convince in the recognition scene as Orestes. Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke turned out somewhat pale as Aegisth. The handmaidens made up a homogeneous group with Lauren Fagan in particular standing out as the fifth maid.
Make no mistake: the tense sound world of Elektra found its way into a very violent score. It is one big volcanic eruption whose boiling lava regularly pours over the edge of the orchestra pit. The worst thing that can happen to an Elektra orchestra is to get bogged down in a hazy mush of sound. Herbert von Karajan was of the opinion that you shouldn't conduct Elektra after the age of sixty: it takes a lot of discipline, steersmanship and great dynamic control to catapult all that violence into the auditorium with maximum transparency. My personal litmus test occurs after the scene with the maidens: it is the orchestral emphasis that follows Electra's invocation of Agamemnon. The primitive violence that surges from unfathomable depths via the double basses usually sounds far too well behaved. Not so with Kirill Petrenko as the helmsman. The granite chords of the Agamemnon motif (the DNA of revenge!) were overwhelming and crystal clear. Could be perceived with great detail during this dynamically very extreme reading: the sallow orchestral colors and shrill accents during the "psychic polyphony" (dixit Strauss) of Clytemnestra's dream images, the metallic jingling and rattling of the ornaments with which she covers her ravaged body, the twittering of the woodwinds at the announcement of Orestes' death, the lyricism of the near-love duet of the recognition scene, the Viennese flair of the Aegisth music, the obscene violence of both murders. As far as the orchestra was concerned, this was short of a total knockout.