The several ancient Greek versions of the Elektra story make one thing clear: Driven by deprivation and cruelty, a person can exhibit extreme, if not psychotic, behavior.
Toward the end of Richard Strauss’ opera “Elektra” — the text by Hugo von Hofmannsthal and based on the Sophocles play — when the title character recognizes her brother, Orest, the German composer’s 1909 work reaches an emotional climax, as it so clearly did Saturday, when San Francisco Opera premiered a new and, as expected, bracing production by English director Keith Warner.
In the scene, Elektra, acted and ably sung by American dramatic soprano Christine Goerke, scales down her ferocity, replacing it with tenderness, and Strauss’ predominantly dissonant, ferocious chords turn lyrical — but the sweet mix of sounds is quickly supplanted by more violent ones when Orest, at the urging of Elektra, begins the pair’s bloody revenge.
Elektra dramas surfaced in the 5th-century B.C., long after being mentioned in the ancient epics written by Homer, “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey.” In brief, in the Sophocles play (Euripides and Aeschylus also wrote versions), Elektra plots vengeance after her father, Trojan War veteran King Agamemnon, is ax-murdered in the bathtub by his wife, Klytemnestra, and her somewhat wimpy lover, Aegisth. When long-lost and believed-to-be-dead Orest returns home, he goes about his bloody business, and Elektra, largely shunned for years by her mother and royal attendants but elated that her long-held desire is finally being realized, dances herself to death.
Unlike the company’s 1997 all-black, minimalist production, Warner sets his in a contemporary museum that apparently passes for a palace, but still one that probably resembles a small gallery in the National Archeological Museum in Athens — except for two “pull-out” minisets, the bedroom belonging to Chrysothemis, Elektra’s sister, and the 1950s-style kitchen of Klytemnestra. It’s a clever enough conceit to solve some staging questions, but, giving way to Warner’s method, audiences must suspend some momentary disbelief.
As the 110-minute opera opens, servants, singing along to music ladened with comic qualities, discuss the unpredictable Elektra, who, they say, howls like the dogs her mother has sent her to live and eat with.
When she entered shortly afterward, Goerke began the opera’s great monologue, “Allein! Weh, ganz allein!” (Alone! Alas, quite alone!”) then recounted the horror of her father’s murder, her plans for revenge and invoked his name: “Agamemnon! Agamemnon! Wo bist du, Vater?” (Where are you, father?).
Throughout, Hungarian conductor Henrik Nanasi, in his company debut, drove the dramatic music, emphasizing its brutality and rough outbursts that changed 20th-century music, but he was also attuned to the score’s occasional lyricism, heard in the opera’s second section, when Chrysothemis, sung and acted well by soprano Adrianne Pieczonka, emerged to commiserate with Elektra about the prison-like atmosphere created by their murderous, now-haggard mother.
Pieczonka was at her best in this scene, vulnerable, pleading with her sister to live and let live so they can move on with their lives — just how, given the nature of their mother and lover’s crime — I’m not sure. They are sisters in gilded misery, and Strauss, the authentic lord of tone, softens the moment for a few measures.
At the opera’s midpoint, Klytemnestra, portrayed by American mezzo-soprano Michaela Martens, properly earthy in her decoding of Strauss’ edgy, rippling rhythms — as shocking today as they were nearly 110 years ago — finally faces off with Elektra, the music piercing, bold in its dissonance, the sound equivalent to the emotions conveyed in the text.
A soprano with the extra stamina required for the towering role, Goerke continued, displaying a cool radiance, subtlety of characterization, always underscored by plenty of power. She proved to be a considerable, arresting performer during the next scene when she is left alone but meets a stranger who, as it turned out, was her brother, Orest, sung by American bass-baritone Alfred Walker.
In this scene, with Elektra spying her brother for the first time in years, Strauss once again subdues the music’s sonic fusillades, but it served only as an interlude before Walker, double-bladed ax in hand, begins his round of slaughter, first beheading his mother, then disemboweling Aegisth, portrayed by tenor Robert Brubaker, whose stage time, most of it in Chrysothemis’ bedroom, where he met his fate, was brief and unremarkable.
If anything was disappointing, it was the final scene, when Goerke, hearing the shrieks of death, her vengeance satisfied, danced with abandon. However, her movements were anything but frenzied, as the story called for, and her collapse to the floor was less than believable.
Elektra destroyed herself, consumed by hatred, but Sophocles’ message may be this: the importance of laws and restraints on human behavior for the survival of the species.
“Elektra” continues to Sept. 22 at the War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Ave., San Francisco. For tickets, $10 to $398, visit www.sfopera.com or call (415) 864-3330.
The author is a Reporter staff writer.