Austrian
director Martin Kushej has courted controversy in the past
with his operatic productions. He is fond of examining the
psychological and emotional extremes of the work in question,
an approach that can work brilliantly in the right piece,
such as his recent Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Unfortunately
his concept for this Zurich Elektra emerges as a stylistic
mish-mash, with whatever good points there are offset by
too many 'director's touches'.
It's
basically a modern dress production set in what appears at
first to be a large warehouse with doors going off in all
directions. Other set designers have used the multiple doors
idea, as it makes for easy and fluent entrances and exits
while keeping a claustrophobic feel. In fact, this felt like
it could be the setting for Bluebeard's Castle or
Kafka's The Trial. The doors are padded, so ultimately
I guess we're meant to view the House of Agamemnon as a sort
of asylum, which is fair enough. The eponymous central character
is dressed as a disaffected youth, punk-like with trainers
and hoodie. This has also been done before, most recently
in the misguided Stuttgart Ring, with its bovver-booted
Brunnhilde railing against daddy Wotan. The depth to which
this royal palace has sunk is shown by most of the servants
cavorting around in fishnet tights and French maid outfits,
obviously indulging in depraved rituals. This works well
at first but quickly becomes tiresome, even laughable, especially
as the TV director's love of extreme close-up betrays the
many body stockings being worn as well as quite a few of
the cast tripping up on the uneven stage surface as they
rush around frantically.
Vocally
Eva Johanssen is strong though her vibrato widens in the
higher, taxing passages. She looks the right age but certainly
doesn't appear 'starved' or 'in rags' as the text indicates.
Melanie Diener is a rather bland Chrysothemis and Marjana
Lipovcek a commanding but shrill Klytemnestra. Some moments
are well judged, such as a still and intense nightmare scene,
where Dohnanyi's subtle conducting allows the polyphonic
lines to really sing rather than just give us 'in your face' dissonance.
The recognition scene is movingly staged, only really undermined
by Alfred Muff's commanding Orestes, supposedly Elektra's
younger brother, looking roughly twice as old as her.
Other
parts are well sung but the whole enterprise ends up being
intensely irritating. Why spoil the powerful ending, Elektra's
dance of death, by bringing on a glittering troupe of dancers
who look like the Tiller Girls? Also, Kushej has Elektra
gently swaying as if in a trance before she drops, rather
than wildly cavorting, which is fine, but he then spoils
this by having her get back up again and stare defiantly
out at the audience as the final chords crash out, totally
subverting Strauss and Hofmannsthal's intentions. There are
other miscalculations, like giving Aegisthus a gun which
then has to be conveniently pick-pocketed by Elektra so he
can then be murdered by the axe. There's another, earlier 'director's
touch' I didn't like when Elektra is frantically digging
for the same axe; he brings on a young girl with blonde hair
and white dress who walks towards Elektra and first embraced
then symbolically buried by her. What? Are we meant to think
this is the child Elektra, untainted and innocent before
all hell breaks loose in her household, and who can never
rest in peace again? Who knows, and indeed these concepts
might provide gossip after a night in the theatre but are
likely to prove too idiosyncratic for the DVD library, even
with a strongly lyrical and unhistrionic performance from
the pit.
No,
the fact is that when I turned back to my favourite DVD of
this incredible score, the mid-1980s Vienna version from
Kupfer and Abbado (see review),
my first feeling was - this is more like it. The production has
the right balance of modernity and classicism, Kupfer's charnel-house inhabited by barely human
creatures that slither around the outskirts of the decaying
palace. The singing and acting are inspired, especially Brigitte
Fassbaender's magnificently depraved Krysothemis and Eva
Marton's multi-layered Elektra. The playing is astounding
and Abbado's conducting a model of its kind, bringing out
the shocking aspects of the score that so impressed Schoenberg
and his followers without losing the tenderness that is also
tucked away within the teeming anthill of notes. Sound quality
is also just about as good as the newer one.
Some
may respond more positively than me to this Zurich production,
but if you're looking for something for the library shelf,
Kupfer and Abbado still take some beating.
Tony Haywood
Elektra -
Eva Johansson (sop); Klytemnestra - Marjana Lipovcek (mezzo); Chrysothemis
- Melanie Diener (sop); Aegisthus - Rudolf Schasching (tenor); Orestes -
Alfred Muff (bass); Tutor - Reinhardt Meyer (bass-bar); Overseer -
Margaret Chalker (sop);Young Servant - Andreas Winkler (tenor); Old
Servant - Morgan Moody (bass); Confidante - Cassandra McConnell (sop);
Trainbearer - Christine
Zoller (mezzo) 
[102:00] 
