Richard Strauss (1864–1949)
Elektra, Opera in one act (1909)
Elektra – Barbara Krieger (soprano); Chrysothemis – Astrid Weber (soprano); Klytämnestra – Sanja Anastasia (mezzo-soprano); Orest – Jochen Kupfer (baritone); Aegisth – Sotiris Charalampous (tenor)
Orchestre Experience/Julien Salemkour, uncredited second conductor
rec. 2023, Knutson Studio, Berlin (singers); orchestral sessions at an uncredited venue
No sung texts or translations provided
Reviewed as a 24/96 download
Solo Musica SM 484 [89]

New studio recordings of Strauss’s Elektra are exceedingly rare, not least because of the extraordinary demands the opera places on both singers and orchestra, above all the soprano in the title role. Fully uncut versions are rarer still, as noted in Ralph Moore’s useful survey. Therefore, this new recording of a completely uncut Elektra without any of the usual stage cuts authorised by Strauss is naturally of great interest.

Yet the initial lack of a detailed cast list in the PDF booklet (it was only later added to the label’s website), together with the wilfully obscured identity of the orchestra and chorus, raises suspicions from the outset.  What are they trying to hide?

To its credit, the label’s press releases are refreshingly honest about the elephant in the room. Initial plans for recording sessions with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra in Venezuela were foiled by the pandemic, so the decision was made to record the orchestra and the singers separately. Consequently, the singers had to overdub the pre-recorded orchestral part. Separate recordings of singers and orchestras were not entirely uncommon in the days of Karajan or Solti. Even in recent decades there have been examples of this patchwork approach, for instance, Kent Nagano’s 2009 recording of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (Sony Classical 88697508212). However, this technique was usually confined to individual roles or passages, and it certainly was not common practice to record an entire opera in this manner.

This recording originated in connection with a stage production of Elektra at the Brandenburger Theater in May 2024, which featured a very similar cast. The photographs on the cover and in the booklet all come from Alexander Busche’s production in Brandenburg an der Havel. However, the orchestra on this recording is clearly not the Brandenburger Symphoniker, and an ‘Orchestre Experience’ does not exist as an established ensemble. The identity of the chorus singing ‘Orest!’ in the final scene remains shrouded in mystery.

To complicate matters further, the recording was faced with an additional challenge: Julien Salemkour, the only conductor credited on the cover, oversaw the orchestral sessions only and was not involved in the recording of the singers.  It is unclear whether the artists’ schedules simply did not align, whether Salemkour wished to distance himself from this recording project, or if the singers wanted to distance themselves from Salemkour, a former protégé of Daniel Barenboim, whose career as an opera conductor has largely shifted to Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine. 

Be that as it may, the exact cause of his absence during the later recording sessions is irrelevant. A single conductor overseeing the entire project would have been essential, as there is currently no sense of a unified artistic vision bringing together singers and orchestra.

According to the booklet, the recording was supposedly made at the ‘Knutson Studio’ in Berlin. However, a glance at Google Maps reveals that this studio is far too small to accommodate an opera such as Elektra; it appears barely large enough for chamber music. Therefore, Salemkour’s orchestral recording must have been made at some other venue with completely different acoustics. The sound engineers made little attempt to match the incompatible acoustics of the two locations during post-production, resulting in a strangely disconcerting listening experience, especially when using headphones; one seems to hear the blurry, muffled sound of a far-away orchestra in a huge, reverberant aircraft hangar, while the singers are standing uncomfortably close in a tiny broom cupboard, blasting directly into the listener’s ear as though forced to project across an enormous orchestra pit. The overall sound is therefore unrealistic and unattractive, proving particularly unflattering to singers with large, dramatic voices.

There is a distinct lack of integration and spontaneous interaction between singers and orchestra that is crucial to the success of any performance of Elektra. The dynamic range of the orchestra is limited to shades of mezzo forte and the sound lacks clarity; even Solti’s 1967 recording offers greater transparency. Extreme tempo shifts make it sound almost as if Salemkour deliberately tried to sabotage the efforts to overdub the vocal parts by adhering too rigidly to Strauss’s metronome indications. Alongside Wagner’s Das Rheingold and the operas of Alban Berg, Elektra is probably the opera in which music and the sound and rhythm of speech form a complete symbiosis. A separate recording of singers and orchestra is therefore problematic from the outset. It always sounds as if the singers are either waiting for the orchestra or desperately trying to keep up with Salemkour’s tempi. Intermittent ensemble issues and very obvious edits strongly suggest that the singers did not have access to a video recording of Salemkour’s orchestral sessions or a click track that might have helped them anticipate the conductor’s tempo choices.

As Elektra, Barbara Krieger manages to get through this mammoth role without any major mishaps, an achievement that merits respect given the sheer difficulty of the part. Yet her performance is marred by noticeable register breaks, eccentric phrasing and frequent breaths at awkward points mid-phrase. Occasionally, she even resorts to a  kind of Sprechgesang for no apparent reason, especially when singing phrases at the very bottom of her vocal range. Her top notes are unsupported, and the overall sound is rather breathy.

Many of Krieger’s interpretative choices are highly idiosyncratic. For example, she turns the phrase ‘Triff noch einmal!’ (‘Strike again!’) at figure 192a into a fluttery ornamentation that sounds as if she is about to launch into a coloratura aria from The Magic Flute, even though the stage direction clearly states ‘schreit auf wie ein Dämon’ (‘cries out like a demon’). If anything, Krieger’s delivery of this passage sounds comical rather than demonic. Furthermore, she audibly struggles with the tongue twisters that Salemkour’s tempo choices inflict on her. The monologue from figures 240 to 255, one of Strauss’s optional cuts and missing from most recordings, sees Elektra vividly imagining how her mother is being chased through the palace by an assassin. Here, it sounds rather as if Elektra is the one being chased by the orchestra and the relentless, absent conductor.

Astrid Weber as Chrysothemis manages some acceptable work in the more lyrical passages, but often turns unpleasantly shrill, with uncontrolled vibrato and far too many alarming slips in intonation (sometimes a quarter-tone flat!). It would be no exaggeration to describe Chrysothemis’s aria-like monologue ‘Elektra! Schwester! Komm mit uns!’ (‘Elektra! Sister! Come with us!’) at figures 219a to 229a as a complete car crash: screechy top notes sung at approximate pitch, accompanied by an uncredited, sub-par chorus that does not sing in tune either. The resulting cacophony is definitely the low point of this recording and should have been caught by a producer. The chorus clearly consists of too few singers to achieve a blend, so that individual voices really stick out.

Sanja Anastasia as Klytämnestra is competent and sings much better than the other two female leads. She is particularly convincing in the nightmare scene, though there is not much sense of dramatic interaction with Elektra in their dialogue scene, which raises the question of whether mother and daughter were recorded separately too. Her manic laughter and off-stage death scream sound unflattering due to the lack of a plausible sound stage. 

Jochen Kupfer’s Orest is adequately sung but curiously undercharacterised and somewhat unmemorable. Sotiris Charalampous’s youthful Aegisth is one of the few highlights of this recording. Thankfully, the character of Aegisth is not reduced to a caricature sung by an ageing Heldentenor, as is so often the case. Nevertheless, I suppose few people would purchase a recording of Elektra solely to hear a well-sung Aegisth.

The booklet is in German only and contains no libretto. It consists of a rather superficial essay discussing the opera’s plot and an interview with Barbara Krieger. Both the text and cast list are riddled with errors and have evidently not been proofread. This negligence is symptomatic of the overall quality of this release.

Its many shortcomings point above all to a failure of quality control on the part of the label. Someone should have pointed out to the artists involved that they were not doing themselves any favours with this release and sent them back to a larger recording studio (preferably together with an orchestra and a single conductor!). Clearly, however, no one pulled the emergency brake in time.

There have been a whole series of magnificent Elektra singers in recent years, such as Nina Stemme and, currently, Catherine Foster and Ricarda Merbeth. It is regrettable that they were not recorded commercially, as their interpretations would have been far more deserving of being preserved for posterity. For listeners interested in a truly unabridged Elektra, I would continue to recommend the Semyon Bychkov recording with Deborah Polaski in the title role (Profil Medien PH05022). While it is not perfect either (no recording of such a complex work could ever be), it boasts first-rate singers, a transparent orchestral sound with great dynamic range, and above all a pronounced sense for dramatic development and the relationship between music and text. In short, it has everything that is missing from the present, clumsily cobbled-together ‘karaoke version,’ which should be considered a curiosity at best.

Stefan Schwarz

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Other cast
Orest’s tutor – Frederik Baldus (baritone)
The confidante/The trainbearer – Jasmin von Brünken (soprano)
A young servant – Ilja Martin (tenor)
An old servant – Lukas Eder (bass)
The overseer – Lana Hartmann (soprano)
First maid – Denise Seyhan (mezzo-soprano)
Second maid – Friederike Harmsen (soprano)
Third maid – Anna Werle (mezzo-soprano)
Fourth maid – Nataliia Ulasevych (soprano)
Fifth maid – Natalia Baldus (soprano)