Strauss’s Elektra hits all the right notes in Stockholm

“Stockholm’s opera house? Just like Paris’ Palais Garnier, you know.” I had stumbled across the only opera-savvy taxi driver on the line at Stockholm airport. “Had that Jussi Björling in the back of my cab once. Loud geezer!” Actually, not quite. But cabbie did go on a bit. Next time I’ll say I’m going fishing.

“Welcome to the Hotel Kungsträdgården, sir. The opera house? Round the corner. It’s just like the Palais Garnier in Paris.” No escape.

So, when I walked along the street and found a substantial, but somewhat higgledy-piggledy neoclassical building built in 1892, I couldn’t figure out what they were talking about. Until I got inside. A gold leaf foyer, majestic marble staircase and a Garnier-plus gilded over the top 1,200-seater auditorium with a stonking Royal Box – permanently reserved by the royal family – more than justified the description.

Operan, as the building is dubbed, is a truly beautiful space. It is the second opera house to occupy the site. The Gustavian Opera, built in 1755, lost favour with the royal family when the onstage action moved to the foyer on 16 March 1795. 

King Gustav III was shot by Jacob Johan Anckarström during a masked ball. Which is why Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera, based on poor Gustav’s fate – he died thirteen days later – met censorship restrictions from the Austrian authorities in 1859. Kill a king? Not good for Habsburgs. 

However, the even more tasteless and directly au point opera, Gustav III by Daniel Auber, got away censor-free in Paris in 1833. But that’s post-revolutionary France for you. The restored Louis Philippe I, the Citizen King (Ho! Ho!), was an anything-goes sort of guy. 

I was in Sweden to see – amongst other things – a performance of Richard Strauss’s Elektra. With any luck the blood, gore and murder would be strictly confined to the stage. 

I had travelled to Stockholm principally for the premiere of Melancholia, music by Mikael Karlsson, libretto Royce Vavrek, based on the film by iconic director Lars von Trier, the apocalyptic Melancholia which, some say, took the world by storm in 2011. I confess I missed it.

The plot had promised much wailing and gnashing of teeth.  At her wedding reception, the beautiful, but depressed, Justine spots a red star in the sky. It is the planet Melancholia, on a collision course with Earth. Bridegroom Michael tries to calm her down with his love. Her mother Gaby poisons her with her darkness. Her sister Claire attempts to rescue her with her solicitude. An everyday story of wedding folk.

This is Scandi-noire in spades. No one can stop the mysterious forces ignited within Justine. And Melancholia gets closer and closer and…

Let’s leave it suspended there. Because the performance was cancelled after a stagehand was tragically killed on set and the police investigations left insufficient time for rehearsals. No, don’t tell me the ending. I’m going back to Stockholm when it is restaged. Unless some Deep Impact, Armageddon, Apocalypse, Earthfall event intervenes. Meantime, my advice to Justine? Don’t Look Up.

The house opens early, allowing time to promenade, admire the exhibits of opera costumes and relax in the small café and larger restaurants all on the premises. The Operan, as it is commonly referred to, includes another smaller performing space, the Rotunden, and is a destination for a complete evening’s entertainment, as any self-respecting opera house should be. 

This production of Elektra was semi-staged, so could go ahead, although, bizarrely, subsequent performances were cancelled. I had snuck in just before Knacker of the Stockholm Yard had swathed the set in crime scene tape. 

We are in the courtyard of the Palace of Mycenae around 420 BC. Well, we were actually looking at a twin flat set, bathed in red light with a passage in the middle to facilitate entrances and exits, as well as stage left and right. The simplicity was beautifully exploited by Swedish-German director, Staffan Valdemar Holm, who heightened the dramatic tension with spare action. The on-first-sight-unpromising set proved a great success.

The servants line up on either side of the entrance wondering whether Elektra will be grieving over her father, as is her daily ritual. Daughter of the murdered King Agamemnon and Klytämnestra, Elektra appears and isolates herself – stage left – straight away. In fully staged productions she is commonly in a cell, or a tower, or in more modern versions, some art-deco bedroom with a powder puff. 

The servants all criticise and mock her, except for one, who comes to her defence. Singing apart from the rest of the cast, Elektra remembers how Agamemnon was assassinated upon his return from Troy, slain with an axe by his wife Klytämnestra and her lover, Aegisth. 

Devastated with grief, Elektra is obsessed with the revenge she intends to take together with her sister, Chrysothemis, and her brother, Orest. He grew up far away from the palace, and Elektra keenly waits for him to return.

Chrysothemis interrupts Elektra, who is caught up in her thoughts, and warns her that Klytämnestra and Aegisth have decided to lock her up in a tower. Chrysothemis, a bit of a wimp, asks her sister to renounce vengeance and let life take over again. Elektra rejects the idea with disdain.

Where do the Swedes find these sopranos? Ingela Brimberg who sang Elektra had a fabulous voice and performed the tragic role to perfection. The lack of diversionary stage histrionics kept the eye firmly on her and she was hellishly convincing. 

If anything, Christina Nilsson (no, not the legendary Christina Nilsson born in 1843; the Swedes are just not over-original in the naming department) in the difficult role of Chrysothemis topped Brimberg. She had a richer voice. The quality of both was as good as it gets. 

Klytämnestra, contralto Katarina Leoson – also top notch – arrives with her entourage. She has been preparing sacrifices, hoping to pacify the gods as she suffers from nightmares. She wants to talk to Elektra, and when her daughter’s words are more amenable than usual, Klytämnestra sends off her retinue and remains alone with her. 

Klytämnestra asks her daughter what remedy could restore her sleep, and Elektra reveals that a sacrifice may indeed free her from her nightmares. But when the queen, full of hope, asks who needs to be killed, Elektra replies that it is Klytämnestra herself who must die. Bad news, mum.

Elektra goes on to describe with frenzied elation how her mother will succumb to Orest’s blows. Then the court is thrown into a panic. Two strangers have arrived and asked to be seen. The queen receives a message and leaves immediately without saying a single word to Elektra.

Chrysothemis frantically brings Elektra terrible news. Orest is dead. At first, Elektra remains deaf to what has been said. Then, having lost all hope, she concludes that she and her sister must themselves take their vengeance without further delay. But Chrysothemis isn’t up for it and flees. Elektra curses her. She will have to act alone. She heads stage left and is handed an axe. Normally, she digs it up. 

One of the strangers, who claims to be a friend of Orest and has come to bear the news of his death, has now been at the court for a while. Elektra besieges him with questions. When she reveals her name, he is shaken. She doesn’t recognize him until the servants of the palace throw themselves at his feet.

It is Orest, sung by British baritone, Jeremy Carpenter, who stands before her. Orest, who tricked everyone into believing he was dead, to sneak into the palace. Elektra is both elated and in despair. She feels immeasurable fondness for her brother and deep sadness about the life of a recluse she has chosen for herself. 

The two are interrupted by Orest’s guardian. The hour of vengeance has arrived, and the deed Orest has come to perform now needs to be done. Orest enters the palace. Elektra listens for the slightest noise. Klytämnestra is heard screaming as Orest slays her.

There is a moment of panic when the servants hear cries, but they flee when they learn that Aegisth is returning from the fields. As the sun is setting, he encounters Elektra, who, in a suddenly joyful mood, offers to light his way into the house. He discovers Klytämnestra’s body before Orest kills him as well.

Chrysothemis comes out of the palace and tells her sister about their brother’s return and the double murder of Klytämnestra and Aegisth. Elektra, hovering between ecstasy and madness, maintains that only silence and dance can celebrate their liberation. 

Beset by extreme frenzy, she dances until she drops. She will never be the one to have executed the act of revenge. Her reason for surviving has gone. Orest leaves the palace, alone and in silence. 

American conductor, Kungliga Operan’s Music Director, Alan Gilbert, handled Strauss’s sweeping, dramatic score adroitly. Elektra (1906), a tragedy, comes immediately before Der Rosenkavalier (1909), a comedy. Strauss’s score delivers all the musical subtleties of harmony and melody familiar in the relaxed score of Rosenkavalier, but honed down to powerful gamma rays of sound, penetrating and shocking – as the libretto demands.

Elektra marked a significant shift towards modernism at the start of a new century. Even semi-staged, this Kungliga Operan production still sets the pulses racing.

And another thing!

Martyn Brabbins, English National Opera (ENO)’s music director of seven years, has unceremoniously quit. The first ENO heard of his decision was via a press release from his agent last Sunday. Not even a phone call to the ENO team.

Purportedly aggrieved by cuts to the music staff following ENO’s recent spending cuts inflicted by Arts Council England – hardly ENO’s fault – I’m given to understand that Brabbins, on the ENO board, rarely attended meetings, and not at all during the recent funding crisis. 

Leaving a sinking ship is a well-trodden path. But quitting once the ship has been rescued after striking its Arts Council iceberg – remember, ENO was meant to be gone by April this year – and is now determinedly steaming ahead on an albeit altered course, is not. 

Recently, Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes found ENO at the top of its form with a stunning production and Brabbins brilliant in the pit. I, along with many others, felt the rescue of ENO had been worth it. What new heights would the Musical Director now scale?

He is no more. It’s impossible to tell what happened behind closed doors, but Brabbins, if he feels he doesn’t owe a proper explanation to ENO, does owe one to his supporters who love his work and backed him and ENO in its time of crisis. Frankly, as one such I feel badly let down by a musician I, until now, admired.

Write to us with your comments to be considered for publication at letters@reaction.life