Behind the glorious opulence of Strauss’ “Elektra” – the mythical setting of the libretto, the relentless terror of the score – hides something smaller: a starkly framed family portrait, though one has been knocked off the wall and scratched by shards of shattered glass.
That has always been at the heart of Patrice Chéreau’s production, which returned to the Metropolitan Opera on Friday evening. But in this revival, you could come home even closer to just its two sisters, antipodal soprano roles sung by Nina Stemme and Lise Davidsen with spotlight clarity and achingly human sensitivity.
Chéreau’s staging, which premiered at the Aix-en-Provence festival in 2013 before coming to the Met six years ago, doesn’t seem to have aged a day. And it’s hard to imagine this happening any time soon with a placeless production befitting Sophocles’ timeless classic tragedy – which Hugo von Hofmannsthal adapted into a play for Freud’s era and then a libretto for Strauss’ opera.
The set, by Richard Peduzzi, is the large and stern courtyard of the vaguely Mediterranean home of a vaguely elite family in vaguely contemporary attire (designed by Caroline de Vivaise). Where the production gets more specific is the departure of the libretto: the absence of caricature and rogue, the climax of the death dance rather than a scene of silence and life continuing in agony. Mostly bloodless where it could be a massacre, it is a study of a family broken beyond repair by trauma.
This concept calls for singers who can actually act. And Stemme rises to meet it, if not always in voice, then in dramatic intensity, which has only increased since she sang the title role in the Chéreau production’s first performance at the Met. She is never at rest: swaying as she stares straight ahead, her eyes wide open with laser focus on avenging her father, Agamemnon.
When Stemme sang about his death – a murder committed by Elektra’s mother, Klytämnestra, and her lover, Aegisth – her voice was not always cooperative, especially on the low end of her range. At times, she visibly braced herself for the role’s most punishing outbursts. Yet she delivered them as with dragon’s breath, matched only by passages of painful delicacy.
Davidsen, as Elektra’s sister Chrysothemis, gave her best performance at the Met this season – able to show a wider range than in Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” last fall, and more in control of her immense instrument than during a recent run of Strauss’s “Ariadne auf Naxos” and a benefit concert for Ukraine, in which she sang that composer’s “Four Last Songs”. Typically a better actor by her voice than her physicality, here she carried just as much character on her sad face as Stemme in her eyes.
Davidsen broke the news that her brother, Orest, had passed away, “thrown and trampled by his own horses,” Davidsen let out a chilling wail — not for the last time in the evening. Originally trained as a mezzo-soprano, she has a powerful lower range that is as exciting to watch as her glowing high notes, and an impressive smoothness in more conversational moments.
She and Stemme were supported throughout by a Met Orchestra in excellent shape conducted by Donald Runnicles, whose score reading was sensitively aligned with Chéreau’s. The opera sounded scarier and more chaotic—the carnage was bombarded in many interpretations—but Runnicles insisted on the possibility of dramatic momentum on a more subdued scale. And the evening was no less exciting; at least it was compelling in its revealing transparency, the layers of expressionist color, sweetness and Wagnerian abundance stacking in counterpoint or weaving in and out with grace.
There were luminaries elsewhere – Hei-Kyung Hong as an authoritative and ferocious Fifth Maid – but also outliers among the patrons. Michaela Schuster’s Klytämnestra was one of clear gestures and a tense voice, which she occasionally tried to save with almost Sprechstimme declamation. Chéreau’s production revolves around a sympathetic Klytämnestra; she didn’t quite succeed. And men were shadows of their former appearances. Greer Grimsley’s resonant bass-baritone here was faded and strenuous, and not always easy to follow. As Aegisth, Stefan Vinke was barely audible – an unsettling twist for a tenor singing parts like Siegfried, perhaps barking but at least with penetrating power.
You couldn’t help but feel bad when they sang along with one of the starring sisters. And that is always: Stemme never leaves the stage. After all, it’s her show — and for this run, Davidsen’s, too.
electricity
Until April 20 at the Metropolitan Opera; metopera.org.
