Admin

Organization

Singer

Soprano

Renate Behle

The overseer

The confidante

Mezzo-soprano

Andrea Hill

Second maid

The trainbearer

Conductor

Esa-Pekka Salonen

Stage director

Patrice Chéreau

Set designer

Richard Peduzzi

Costume designer

Caroline de Vivaise

Lighting designer

Dominique Bruguière

Evelyn Herlitzius

Electra

Waltraud Meier

Klytaemnestra

Adrianne Pieczonka

Chrysothemis

Baritone

Mikhail Petrenko

Orest

Tenor

Tom Randle

Aegisth

Bass

Franz Mazura

Orest's tutor

Florian Hoffmann

A young servant

Peter Wimberger

An old servant

Contralto

Bonita Hyman

First maid

Silvia Hablowetz

Third maid

Marie-Eve Munger

Fourth maid

Roberta Alexander

Fifth maid

Festival d'Aix en Provence

Chorus master

Jorge Matta

Donald McIntyre

Others

Gulbenkian Choir

Orchestra

Orchestre de Paris

Elektra -  (Electra)

Aix-en-Provence

France

Grand Théâtre de Provence

Elektra by R. Strauss, from Aix-en-Provence Festival, 2013. Directed by Patrice Chéreau, conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, starring Andrea Hill, Tom Randle, Donald McIntyre, Mikhail Petrenko, Renate Behle, Franz Mazura, Bonita Hyman, Evelyn Herlitzius, Waltrud Meier, Adrianna Pieczonka and Diener Florian Hoffmann. Performed in German and subtitled in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian.

A timeless tragedy told and retold through the centuries, staged by one of the most renowned visionaries of the opera stage to a score by an undisputed master of twentieth-century romanticism: all of this is on the bill in this production for the ages, performed in 2013 at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in the south of France. The legendary Patrice Chéreau (who passed away just months later) honors Richard Strauss's masterpiece with feverish intensity, supported by a dream cast and an Orchestre de Paris in top form under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen.

Soprano Evelyn Herlitzius gives life to the Elektra, the focus of Hugo von Hofmannsthal's libretto that drew its inspiration in the Sophocles play. The daughter of Agamemnon—murdered king of Mycenae, betrayed upon his return from the Trojan War by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus (the dazzling Waltraud Meier and Tom Randle)—Elektra is unafraid to court danger in search of justice, desperately trying to protect her younger brother Orestes (a brilliant Mikhail Petrenko), rightful heir to the throne, and seeking to avenge her father under the watchful eyes of his executioners...

A stage set like the inner life of the characters: sparse, stunted and above all gloomy. The cast is convincing throughout, above all Evelyn Herlitzius, whose Elektra takes on almost manic proportions. Chéreau's art of leadership as a means of finding the truth is once again to be admired.

Elektra Strauss,R

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