greg@olivej.UUCP (12/20/84)
A couple of months ago I posted my feelings about a San Francisco
Opera performance of Richard Strauss' "Elektra". Last Saturday's
Met broadcast provided interesting contrasts and comparisons.
I heard the broadcast on unfamiliar equipment, but my impression
is that the sound quality was a marked improvment over anything
I heard last year (I missed the "Barber of Seville" the previous
week).
In the San Francisco performance, I was very impressed with the
clarity and transparency of the orchestral part as realized by
the San Francisco Opera orchestra under Jeffrey Tate. I felt
that his sense of balance and the way he encouraged his players to
maintain a beautiful tone even in the heaviest, most dissonant
passages contributed gave the work a greater power and grandeur
than I had experienced before. Others apparently did not agree.
The Met performance was conducted by James Levine and while
there was still a great deal of beauty to be heard in the
playing, particularly the horn solos, the overall approach was
far more hell-bent-for-leather.
This was reflected in the vocal performances. In San Francisco,
Janis Martin used a cool, clear and evenly produced soprano
(incapable of reaching several critical top notes) to build
a characterization that attempted to preserve the nobility and
dignity the character would, as a princess, have had before
the murder of her father. This added lyricism and vulnerability
gave Elektra greater stature, in my mind, than the raving
she-demon that is usually portrayed. I didn't see Ute Vinzing,
the Met Elektra, but from the broadcast would presume hers was
the more usual raving, manic portrayal. The voice was thick,
"covered" sounding and uneven in its mid-range, sometimes almost
comical when plunging through register breaks. In contrast
to Janis Martin, though, her top register blazed like a beacon,
with rock steady high C's making a tremendous impact at the
end of the first narrative as well as at the climax of the
confrontation with Clytemnestra.
Clytemnestra herself was Christa Ludwig in the Met broadcast,
and immensely better than her San Francisco equivalent. Ludwig
has been a phenomenal singing actress for some 30 years now.
Having heard the harsh, darkly dramatic singing she did in
this performance it came as a bit of a shock to hear the
announcer at the end mentioning the fact that she originally
made her Met debut as Cherubino. Her past range of roles,
ranging over all registers of the female voice, have included
standard-setting achievements in such diverse parts (in which
I've seen her) as Octavian, Ortrud, Dyer's Wife ('Frau Ohne
Schatten') and Eboli. The voice sounded hard, sometimes
shrill, and generally lacking the "plush" it used to have
on this broadcast. It was, though, always singing of power
and substance with biting, incisive declamation of the text.
Comparisons of the other singers came to something of a draw.
Johanna Meier was adequate as Chrysothemis, more evenly
projected than Carol Neblett in San Francisco, but nobody
since Leonie Rysanek has been able to revel in the soaring,
high-lying writing that Strauss composed for this part.
I have to say, though, that I feel even this opera, which
still represents Strauss in a more creative vein than his
later works, shows a marked deterioration of inventive
skills over "Salome". "Salome", even with the cheap
movie-music "Dance of the Seven Veils" has a variety of
color and beauty of writing that support Strauss' tremendous
skill as an orchestral and vocal composer. In the case
of "Elektra" and even more so with the later works, I
hear the skill but less and less of the beauty and
imaginativeness.
- Greg Paleyjeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (12/20/84)
This broadcast was a special experience for me. For the last 10 years or
so, I have acquainted myself with operas I was curious about, not only
by listening to performances, but by playing through the piano scores.
I had read through "Elektra" two or three times before the Met
broadcast, but I had never heard it performed. Well, it's experiences
like this that make me wonder why people bother with drugs. Although
I recognized things were going on which I didn't care for (see below),
I was so caught up I was close to tears through the whole thing. And I
listened to it on a cheap FM alarm radio! And I didn't even see it!
Aaargh, music is heaven...
All in all though, I agree with Greg's assessments of the performance.
Especially I found myself irritated with Levine's pace, in which it
seemed many of the beauties I discovered from playing the work were
swallowed (my poor radio didn't help). It also gave the impression there
was too much singing crammed into too short a time, which I am sure Strauss
did *not* intend.
Compare this experience to the one I had a few years ago when there was
a TV broadcast (with subtitles) of "Otello". I had only the vaguest idea
of this opera before then. I had heard it was a masterpiece - "even if
you don't care for Verdi ["Falstaff" is the only other Verdi I can handle],
you'll like this, etc." And I had accompanied the setting of Desdemona's
prayer. So I sat down, curious, to watch, and to listen, in front of my old
B&W TV with lousy sound. Someday I will write in a worthwhile fashion about
the land where I go when I listen to music, but for now suffice to say that,
by the climactic end of the third act, I was so absorbed that, when the
final cadence in C is punctuated by that E major blast (which I could discern
as a motive even on first hearing), I nearly had a heart attack. I get a
chill now just thinking about it. I seem to remember screaming out "did you
hear THAT?" to no one in particular. Since then I have read through the
piano score several times, loving every minute of it.
Someday, I will see Salome. Yes, I also like it better than Elektra,
but I wouldn't put down the "Dance of the Seven Veils" - it's the
relief and the tease that enables Strauss to construct an otherwise
unbroken climax from the middle of the opera (C# minor cadence) to
the end.
Oh well, back to work...
See, I don't always criticize!
Jeff Winslow