Strauss's Elektra
Patrice Chéreau (stage director), Esa-Pekka Salonen (conductor) — With Evelyn Herlitzius (Elektra), Waltraud Meier (Klytämnestra), Mikhail Petrenko (Orest)...
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Cast
Patrice Chéreau — Stage director
Thierry Thieû Niang — Artistic collaboration
Richard Peduzzi — Stage design
Dominique Bruguière — Lighting designer
Caroline de Vivaise — Costumes
Campbell Young — Wig and hair stylist
Vincent Huguet — Assistant stage director
Evelyn Herlitzius — Elektra
Waltraud Meier — Klytämnestra
Adrianne Pieczonka — Chrysothemis
Mikhail Petrenko — Orest
Tom Randle — Aegisth
Esa-Pekka Salonen — Conductor
Program notes
A timeless tragedy told and retold through the centuries, staged by one of the most renowned visionaries of the opera stage to a score by an undisputed master of twentieth-century romanticism: all of this is on the bill in this production for the ages, performed in 2013 at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in the south of France. The legendary Patrice Chéreau (who passed away just months later) honors Richard Strauss's masterpiece with feverish intensity, supported by a dream cast and an Orchestre de Paris in top form under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Soprano Evelyn Herlitzius gives life to the Elektra, the focus of Hugo von Hofmannsthal's libretto that drew its inspiration in the Sophocles play. The daughter of Agamemnon—murdered king of Mycenae, betrayed upon his return from the Trojan War by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus (the dazzling Waltraud Meier and Tom Randle)—Elektra is unafraid to court danger in search of justice, desperately trying to protect her younger brother Orestes (a brilliant Mikhail Petrenko), rightful heir to the throne, and seeking to avenge her father under the watchful eyes of his executioners...
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