Elektra Backdrop Blur
Elektra Poster
9.0 1h 49m

Elektra

Recorded at the Vienna State Opera house in 1989, this staging of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Elektra is one of the glories of live opera on film, deserving of eternal availability. The DVD picture has great clarity, despite the darkness of Hans Schavernoch’s set design. Other than the cliché of a huge statue head, toppled on its side, the set manages to be suitably representative of a decaying palace as well as an imposing, theatrical space, dominated by the mammoth body of the statue from which the head apparently dropped, draped with the ropes that seem to have enabled the decapitation. Sooner or later most of the characters cling to and twist around those ropes, an apt stage metaphor for the remorseless repercussions from the murder of Agammenon by his unfaithful wife Klytämnestra and her paramour, Aegisthus. Reinhard Heinrich’s costumes capture a distant era while sustaining a creepily modern look — part Goth, part homeless, part Spa-wear.

Top Cast

  • Claudio Abbado

    Claudio Abbado

    Self - Conductor

  • Éva Marton

    Éva Marton

    Elektra

  • Brigitte Fassbaender

    Brigitte Fassbaender

    Klytemnästra

  • Cheryl Studer

    Cheryl Studer

    Chrysothemis

  • James King

    James King

    Aegisth

  • Franz Grundheber

    Franz Grundheber

    Orest

  • Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper

    Orchester der Wiener Staatsoper

    Self - Orchestra

  • Richard Strauss

    Richard Strauss

    Self - Composer

  • Wiener Staatsopernchor

    Wiener Staatsopernchor

    Self - Chorus

Overview

Recorded at the Vienna State Opera house in 1989, this staging of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s Elektra is one of the glories of live opera on film, deserving of eternal availability. The DVD picture has great clarity, despite the darkness of Hans Schavernoch’s set design. Other than the cliché of a huge statue head, toppled on its side, the set manages to be suitably representative of a decaying palace as well as an imposing, theatrical space, dominated by the mammoth body of the statue from which the head apparently dropped, draped with the ropes that seem to have enabled the decapitation. Sooner or later most of the characters cling to and twist around those ropes, an apt stage metaphor for the remorseless repercussions from the murder of Agammenon by his unfaithful wife Klytämnestra and her paramour, Aegisthus. Reinhard Heinrich’s costumes capture a distant era while sustaining a creepily modern look — part Goth, part homeless, part Spa-wear.

Rating

9.0 / 10
1 Reviews
0 Popular

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