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A quick overview of Strauss’ 1909 opera based on Sophocles’ tragedy.

Premiered

1909

Music by

Richard Strauss

Libretto by

Hugo von Hofmannsthal

Language

German

When Richard Strauss began his career in the late 19th century, music was dominated by tonality. In the early 20th century and with the advent of modernism, composers began to break with the rules of the past (tonality had indeed been maintained as a sort of rule governing musical composition) and develop new forms of musical expression.

Strauss was one such composer who began to explore more dissonant or “atonal” music. Although many of Strauss’ other operas are tonal, Elektra, his fourth and most disturbing opera, almost demands that the music lean toward atonality.

The primal themes expressed in Elektra, such as lust for revenge, blind hatred, and patricide, have been the subjects of artistic creation since the Ancient Greeks. Elektra’s original source of inspiration was a play of the same name by the Greek playwright Sophocles, whose work was adapted as a new play by the opera’s librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal.

With Elektra and other modernist works, artists declared that the previous artistic portrayals of the human condition—which were traditionally considered more idealized and “uplifting”—were out of touch with the harsh and cruel reality of the modern world.

In the courtyard of the palace of Agamemnon, murdered King of Mycenae, servant girls comment on the wild behavior of Elektra, Agamemnon’s eldest daughter. When they have gone, Elektra bemoans her father’s murder at the hands of her mother, Klytemnästra, and her mother’s lover, Aegisth. Calling on her father’s spirit, she vows vengeance. She is interrupted by her younger sister, Chrysothemis, who urges Elektra to give up her obsession with revenge so they both can lead normal lives.

As noises from within the palace herald the approach of Klytemnästra, the girl rushes off, leaving Elektra to face their mother alone. The queen staggers in. Drugs, loss of sleep, and fear of retribution have made her a wreck. She appeals to Elektra to tell her what kind of sacrifice to the gods will give her peace. Her nightmares will cease, Elektra responds, when the blood of an impure woman is shed. Challenged to name the victim, Elektra screams it is Klytemnästra herself and that she and her banished brother Orest will wield the ax.

Klytemnästra is shaken, but when her Confidante runs in and whispers something, her mood changes abruptly. Laughing, Klytemnästra leaves her puzzled daughter. The mystery is explained when Chrysothemis reappears with news that Orest is dead. Stunned, Elektra tells her sister she must now help kill Klytemnästra and Aegisth. When the girl pulls away in terror and runs off, Elektra starts to dig for the buried ax that killed Agamemnon. She is interrupted by a stranger who says he has come to inform Klytemnästra of Orest’s death.

Listen to the Story

Lovis Corinth (1858–1925), title page of Elektra’s libretto, 1909 [].

Presented by Washington National Opera, host Saul Lilienstein takes you through the musical world of Strauss’ 1909 opera based on Sophocles’ tragedy, Elektra.

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