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Oper Köln

Stage director

Stage director (+1)

Roland Schwab

Set designer

Set designer (+1)

Piero Vinciguerra

Costume designer

Costume designer (+1)

Gabriele Rupprecht

Lighting designer

Andreas Grüter

Chorusmaster

Chorusmaster (+2)

Rustam Samedov

Dramaturge

Stephan Steinmetz

Soprano (+1)

Allison Oakes

Electra

Tenor (+5)

Martin Koch

Aegisth

Soprano (+2)

Tinka Pypker

The trainbearer

Soprano (+5)

Claudia Rohrbach

The overseer

Mezzo-soprano (+4)

Adriana Bastidas-Gamboa

First maid

Mezzo-soprano (+2)

Tina Drole

Third maid

Soprano (+3)

Maria Koroleva

Fourth maid

Soprano

Emily Hindrichs

Fifth maid

Orchestra

Gürzenich - Orchester Köln

Chorus

Chor der Oper Köln

Staatenhaus Köln

Conductor

Conductor (+1)

Felix Bender

John Heuzenroeder

A young servant

Bass (+4)

Christoph Seidl

An old servant

Mezzo-soprano (+3)

Lioba Braun

Klytaemnestra

Lucas Singer

Orest's tutor

Maike Raschke

The confidante

Mezzo-soprano (+5)

Regina Richter

Second maid

Magdalena Hinterdobler

Chrysothemis

Astrid Kessler

Baritone (+3)

Insik Choi

Orest

Dalia Schaechter

Bass-baritone (+3)

William Socolof

Arne Willimczik

Alina König Rannenberg

Mezzo-soprano (+6)

Susanne Blattert

Armando Elizondo

Serafina Starke

Bass (+3)

Karl-Heinz Lehner

Disaster looms over the ruling house of Mycenae. Since Agamemnon was killed by his wife Klytaemnestra, ever new sacrifices have been made. But peace does not return, especially not for the children. Orest has gone missing, Chrysothemis wants a family of her own, but Elektra pursues only one thought: revenge for her father. “The times are strange”, wrote the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal around 1900, “and they have strange children: us!” He observes “people who were fractured”, who had lost their unity. With irrationality, delusion and “mysteriously aroused nature”, the writer poetically describes what Sigmund Freud was soon to describe psychoanalytically as a sign of the times.

The composer Richard Strauss experienced Hofmannsthal’s “Elektra” as a modern antique drama on the stage in Berlin in 1905 and was fascinated by the expressiveness of the language and the characters. He was particularly interested by the moment where language reaches the end of its possibilities, when Elektra falls into orgiastic dances of triumph. “Do I not hear the music? It comes out of me!” is the decisive sentence for Richard Strauss, who enriches the drama with music that had previously been thought impossible and remains unrivalled to this day. “Elektra” (1909) has the largest orchestra of all of Strauss’ operas, the most incredible tonal language, the starkest contrasts and the boldest idea of opera. Strauss gives the three protagonists Elektra, Chrysothemis and Klytaemnestra a tremendous amount of space to unfold their elemental drive energy - against others and against themselves, under the all-dominant motif of Agamemnon.

This is the first time that the renowned director Roland Schwab, who staged “Tristan und Isolde” at the 2022 Bayreuth Festival, among other things, is working in Cologne.

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