Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
Elektra (1906-1908)
Elektra: Iréne Theorin (soprano)
Klytämnestra: Tanja Ariane Baumgartner (mezzo-soprano)
Chrysothemis: Jennifer Holloway (soprano)
Ägisth: Nikolai Schukoff (tenor)
Orest: Iain Paterson (bass-baritone)
Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus/Edward Gardner
rec. live, 13 and 15 December 2023, Grieghallen, Bergen, Norway
Chandos CHSA5375(2) SACD [2 discs: 104]
This recording of Elektra is the one that nearly got away. Apparently Kirill Petrenko was lined up to conduct these concert performances, but fell ill after arriving in Bergen. Rather than cancel the concerts, the orchestra turned to their Chief Conductor (now Honorary Conductor) Edward Gardner to step in and save the day.
It is appropriate, therefore, that Gardner and the orchestra – aided by Ralph Couzens’s magnificent engineering that makes them clearly audible – are by far the finest things about this recording. There is an abundance of detail that unfurls before the ears. It is easy to forget it is a live performance, albeit in front of a very well-behaved audience; a burst of applause is retained at the very end.
During the opening scene for the maids, a menagerie of orchestral details flickers momentarily into focus before quickly disappearing, like a bunch of wild animals briefly poking their heads out of their burrows. The big climaxes are exhilarating – all those Agamemnons – and there are numerous telling details, such as the lonely basses that groan under Chrysothemis’s und niemand kommt, or the string scurrying as Elektra digs up the axe. The whole ensemble whips up a storm of excitement during Klytämnestra’s approach, and then seems to disintegrate and fragment during her nightmarish dream monologue. The brass glow with warmth in the recognition scene, and the tension is gripping during the murder scenes. Gardner unfolds the whole thing in one big arc; he seems to tap into the spirit of the demonic dance that underpins so much of Strauss’s writing. He is very convincing. The final pages feel a little rushed, but otherwise this is a masterclass.
Unfortunately, the singing is not up to scratch. Nobody is on their best form, and the biggest hole in the set is at its centre. I praised Iréne Theorin’s Elektra to the skies when she sang it for Salzburg on a 2010 DVD (review) but here she is a shadow of what she was. The voice, pale, stretched and fragile, lacks any sense of ease in this – admittedly killer – part, and it fails to crest the wave with the confidence that the finest Elektras have. She manages all the big climaxes, but there is a nagging feeling that any of them might have gone the other way. On the whole, it is not an attractive listen.
Jennifer Holloway’s Chrysothemis is sympathetic and warm in her opening monologue about motherhood, but the voice hardens as the performance progresses. By the end, it is harder to distinguish her sound from Theorin’s. Tanja Ariane Baumgartner is a hollow-eyed Klytämnestra, but she fails to really unleash the ghoulishness of the part in a way you will get from Waltraud Meier (on the Salzburg DVD), Brigitte Fassbaender (with Claudio Abbado on DVD) or Hanna Schwarz (with Giuseppe Sinopoli on DG). Even the über-dependable Iain Paterson sounds a bit unsteady in Orest’s long-breathed slow notes, and Nikolai Schukoff squawks his way through Ägisth as well as he can.
So, despite its virtues, this really is not a competitive Elektra. It is nowhere near a match for Gardner’s comparable Salome (review), which has many more virtues. If you want an Elektra to live with, then that 2010 Salzburg DVD is a good one to sit alongside audio recordings by Sinopoli or Semyon Bychkov. And of course there is Georg Solti with Birgit Nilsson (review), still riding high in the catalogue and shaking the rafters sixty years after it was recorded.
Simon Thompson
Other review: Stephen Barber
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