The Metropolitan Opera has revived Elektra, Richard Strauss’s opera, in the production of the late Patrice Chéreau. The Met first staged this production in the 2015–16 season. I wrote about it here. In the pit, those years ago, was Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Finn. In the pit last night was Donald Runnicles, the Scot, who works at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and elsewhere.
Strauss’s opera started with precision—Runnicles saw to that. (So did the Met orchestra.) This makes a difference, somehow. A precise beginning—a correct, crisp, disciplined beginning—can set the tone for an entire opera. A sloppy beginning can be amazingly deflating, no matter what happens next.
Elektra is a very orchestral opera, I would say—practically a tone poem, with voices among the instruments. The orchestra does not accompany the singers. The orchestra tells the story of the opera, along with the singers. The score requires virtuosity, a sense of pacing, psychological acuity—it had all those things, last night at the Met.
I have a single complaint about Maestro Runnicles: the last part of the opera, I thought, should have been wilder. More intense. More overwhelming. It was a touch sober, for my taste. Still, this was a wonderful Elektra, from the conductor and many others.
Before moving on to the singers, I wish to tell a story. Years ago, I was interviewing Werner Hink at the Salzburg Festival. At the time, he was a concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic. I asked him whether anything funny or notable had ever happened in the traditional handshake between conductor and concertmaster. Yes, he said. He once offered his left hand to Donald Runnicles—because Runnicles is a lefthanded conductor, something unusual in the business.
As in 2016, Nina Stemme, the Swedish soprano, was Elektra last night. I have re-read what I wrote about her six years ago. Every word applies to her performance last night. She has not lost a step. She was magnificent. I will mention just a few things.
For an Elektra, do you want a soprano who leans toward the lyric or who leans toward the dramatic? Because you can’t have both. You have to choose. Not with Stemme, you don’t. She had the strength of an Elektra—the vocal and interpretive power—and also the capacity for Straussian lyric beauty.
Look, when you sing Elektra, they’ll forgive you if you bull your way through. They’ll forgive you if you’re unnuanced, if you don’t sing high pianos, and so on. They’ll forgive you if your pitch is approximate—if your singing is impure. Because they’ll reason, “Yeah, but this is Elektra, and this soprano is bringing theatrical fire and madness and guts.” With Nina Stemme, there was no forgiving to do. She was Elektra, theatrically, no doubt. But she did not excuse herself from singing correctly, beautifully—she was a model, really.
Portraying Elektra’s sister, Chrysothemis, was Lise Davidsen, the Norwegian soprano, and a sensation of this season, certainly at the Met. There will come a day when I stop being stunned at that voice: its beauty, its power. The sheer size of it. Its lush, warm, and oceanic nature. That day has not yet come. I sat there last night stunned, listening to her Strauss, listening to her Chrysothemis.
One thing a Chrysothemis should have is kindness in the voice. Strauss writes it in—but the singer should do her part, too, in bringing it out. Which Lise Davidsen did.
I thought of Deborah Voigt, in the mid-1990s, singing this role at the Met. That was something. Also something was the soprano opposite her, as Elektra: Hildegard Behrens.
Our Klytämnestra last night was Michaela Schuster, a German mezzo-soprano. She was Klytämnestra during the Met’s 2017–18 season. I wrote that she was a good one. “Yet I have a criticism that I have never made of a Klytämnestra, and may never again: the role was underplayed. Klytämnestra is an invitation to over-the-topness.”
Schuster, in my judgment, was apt last night—neither over the top nor under it. I will give you an aside, too: from my seat, she looked rather like Dame Judi Dench.
Orest was Greer Grimsley, an American bass-baritone. He owns a handsome voice. I would have preferred a little more pliancy in it—a little more suppleness, even songfulness. This Orest was a little on the stentorian or declamatory side. It was distinguished nonetheless.
Back in 2016, when the Met first did this production, the company had a veteran and beloved soprano in the small role of the Fifth Servant: Roberta Alexander. The company had another veteran and beloved soprano in that role last night: Hei-Kyung Hong. The audience cheered its appreciation at the end.
In that 2016 review, I closed with a paean to Elektra, which is to say, to the opera itself. I have closed more than one review with a paean to Elektra. I will not repeat myself. But I will not refrain from saying—this is some people’s favorite opera. Their very favorite opera, from Monteverdi to the present. The one they admire the most, the one they’re most impressed by, the one they’re most in awe of. This includes not a few musicians and music scholars.
I understand them.