Strauss - Elektra - Sinopoli

Richrad Strauss (1864-1949): Elektra - Giuseppe Sinopoli - Wiener Philharmoniker

Classical | Opera | Early 20th Century | 2CD | EACRip | APE+LOG+CUE | Covers | RS.com | 483MB
Label:DG | Year of release: 1997 | DDD

Klytaemnestra: Hanna Schwarz
Elektra: Alessandra Marc
Chrysothemis: Deborah Voigt
Aegisth: Siegfried Jerusalem
Orest: Samuel Ramey

Wiener Philharmoniker
Giuseppe Sinopoli

This has to be one of the most at once perplexing and fascinating recordings of a Strauss opera I have ever run across. Tim Ashley wrote allusively of a link between music and the psychology from the Klytaemnestra scene and Mahler's setting in his Third Symphony of Zarathustra's midnight lied. The mysterious colors and stillness that Giuseppe Sinopoli and the Vienna Philharmonic find for the graphic account of the queen's hallucinations in this opera are perfectly apt, that one certainly can find a hint of reminiscence in Strauss's writing. The entire scene between Elektra and her mother is of central importance on this recording, in part for understanding Sinopoli's intentions with this opera.


Comments from the same review published in the August 1997 issue of Opera about broader issues haunt me, as I write mine. "What Sinopoli finds at he hart of this most neurotic of all operas is stylistic inconsistency and a plethora of hitherto unnoticed allusions." He then goes on to extrapolate how different conductors have tended to narrow Elektra down to one prevailing stylistic tendency or another. "Sinopoli will have none of this, doesn't make any attempt to pigeon-hole the score and emphasizes the stylistic content of individual moments rather than forging them into a unity." A few have found fault with this recording for doing just that. I likewise disagree that Sinopoli seems the less experienced Strauss maestro than on his earlier Salome on DGG. Ashley, however, then goes out just a bit on a limb, and finds in the Strauss and Sinopoli's approach tonal methodology of characterization specific to each of the two sisters and Klytaemnestra in this opera, all individually. His claims, in their unique way, do convince, but we're dealing with indeed quite a unique recording of Strauss's masterpiece. Experienced writer that he is, he certainly knows his risks, in his putting so much stock in this idea.

Chrysothemis, who suffers from disturbed psyche enough, does have a lot of music in E-Flat and in triple meter at that, but under Sinopoli, it is music that the more affirmative it sounds, the more tonally it is on the verge of turning the corner to lurch or go careening off the precipice. By the same token, the queen's music distractedly yet obsessively seeks stability, usually in musical terms of one of the royalty or domestic bliss motifs, with which this very tormented character can anchor her thought. Like Ashley, I am sure of Sinopoli working with compass in hand as how to clearly direct his forces through this complex work. Otherwise, we'd probably have so much bombast and superficial underlining of so much detail - never the case here.

Sinopoli's grasp of tonality in this score is as thorough as you'll find from any conductor who has approached it. In my estimation, he joins a small list of conductors whose work with this piece I would call great - Jochum, Bohm (from Dresden on DGG - still out of print), and Mitropoulos, and all of whom take the stage cuts. My wish is that Sinopoli might have opened one or two, instead of literally taking all of them. The broad tempos, and slight tendency to block certain passages tend to remind a little of Solti, the appeal to sensuality in the score, especially in the second part of the Recognition and Aegisth scenes, to Karajan yet this set convinces you that this set pretty much, from the podium perspective, stands on its own merits. Unlike Karajan, nothing orchestrally at least, for a moment, is on autopilot, as seemed to be a little the case the last time I have heard such estimable Strauss maestri Levine and Welser-Most conduct Elektra.

One can read in any musically annotated synopsis of Elektra of the bitonality of repeated alternating, then simultaneous triads in F MInor and B Major in the Klytaemnestra scene. Sinopoli brilliantly weaves the most climactic occurrence of this polytonality into the dramatic trajectory of Klytaemnestra's 'nightmare' monologue and thereby categorically reveals that the polarity that is central to the composer's mind for the long stretch is between the key areas of B Major and C Minor, as similar to the close of Zarathustra. Making such occurence apparently happen within any normal scheme of things, as with these triads, seems even more frightening than its standing alone, as it would in a more bombastic interpretation, as with Solti or a young Levine.

There is also, in so boldly relating stylistic disparity in this piece, quite another trajectory that spells out. The central scene between Elektra and her mother takes the listener as close to as far out as Strauss would ever take us, and then following this with the second Chrysothemis scene (though quite heavily cut here) and Recognition Scene, we are already more than beginning to hear the Strauss of such intimate conversational lyricism, as found from Rosenkavalier to follow through Intermezzo and Arabella to his swansong, Capriccio. And yet, Sinopoli is always acutely aware of every potentially tonally destabilizing moment that will crop up throughout the rest of the opera. Of those heard earlier, it is hard to shake off hearing bassons and horns let off as dogs in heat, the 'stifled breath' upward appoggiaturi from solo horn early on in the first Chrysothemis scene, the hideous whelps and moans from the brass in the fearful procession that announce Klytaemenstra's entrance, the inebriated lurching around of double basses, making almost triplet figures out of one of the procession motifs, some of this all culminating in the wildly animated accompaniment to "Was bluten muss?", that almost overwhelms our attention to what is being sung.

So, what of this Elektra as an opera recording? It seems otherwise that I am reviewing a recording of Strauss's greatest tone poem. It is as opera, two vivid (supporting) tenors apart, that things fall off a bit. Alessandra Marc certainly is nowhere short of the stamina to sing this most treacherous of all parts and convincingly portrays a woman clearly near the end of her tether. Tone tends to be hooty, and diction mushy; an overall sameness tends to take over, expressively. She sings at once at her most impassioned and intimate in feeling during the Recognition Scene, and is well able to capitalize here more than anywhere else, on Sinopoli's support.

Debroah Voigt sings very well, bringing out well the innocence of the Chrysothemis, but here is an interpretation that is a little slow to open out expressively. It is hardly less tiresome, in the interest of bringing out greater hysteria with this part, to encounter a wobbly or unsteady voice here, as this so often makes cliche out of such an approach to this music. Hanna Schwarz, soloist on Sinopoli's fine and underrated Mahler Third (perhaps DGG's best recording of this piece) by the way, is the Klytaemnestra here. Low notes are not too clearly dependable here, but of the three female protagonists hereand also among Klytaemnestras, one gets unfailingly from Schwarz the most subtle and pointed verbal insights, even if a little greater stamina is called for in closing passages to be anywhere nearly as ghoulishly menacing to her daughter, as for instance Lipovsek on the complete Sawallisch (EMI). Regina Resnik (whose peerlessly mysterious reading of Zarathustra's song from Mahler 3 on the classic Martinon/Chicago broadcast eloquently bespeaks her experience as a great Klytaemnestra), Jean Madeira, and Gusta Hammer (Jochum) are at least equally formidable.

Samuel Ramey is expressive and has sufficiently dark tone as Orest, but is a little choppy, all of the above a little remindful of Tom Krause on Nilsson/Solti. He also becomes a bit unstable vocally as his part becomes more animated, toward the moment of recognition, in his crucial scene with Marc. The Overseer of Helga Termer stands out among the female supporting cast, for incisiveness, also the ruling virtue with the Young Servant of Michael Howard (the fine Mime during Sinopoli's Ring for only one summer at Bayreuth several years later). Siegfried Jerusalem is a suitably imperious and incisive Aegisth, tantalized and enticed almost most of all by Sinopoli's play with the sonorities and subtle touches with flutes and harp - what little lost love Strauss ever had for tenors.

David H. Spence

This has to be one of the most at once perplexing and fascinating recordings of a Strauss opera I have ever run across. Tim Ashley wrote allusively of a link between music and the psychology from the Klytaemnestra scene and Mahler's setting in his Third Symphony of Zarathustra's midnight lied. The mysterious colors and stillness that Giuseppe Sinopoli and the Vienna Philharmonic find for the graphic account of the queen's hallucinations in this opera are perfectly apt, that one certainly can find a hint of reminiscence in Strauss's writing. The entire scene between Elektra and her mother is of central importance on this recording, in part for understanding Sinopoli's intentions with this opera.


Comments from the same review published in the August 1997 issue of Opera about broader issues haunt me, as I write mine. "What Sinopoli finds at he hart of this most neurotic of all operas is stylistic inconsistency and a plethora of hitherto unnoticed allusions." He then goes on to extrapolate how different conductors have tended to narrow Elektra down to one prevailing stylistic tendency or another. "Sinopoli will have none of this, doesn't make any attempt to pigeon-hole the score and emphasizes the stylistic content of individual moments rather than forging them into a unity." A few have found fault with this recording for doing just that. I likewise disagree that Sinopoli seems the less experienced Strauss maestro than on his earlier Salome on DGG. Ashley, however, then goes out just a bit on a limb, and finds in the Strauss and Sinopoli's approach tonal methodology of characterization specific to each of the two sisters and Klytaemnestra in this opera, all individually. His claims, in their unique way, do convince, but we're dealing with indeed quite a unique recording of Strauss's masterpiece. Experienced writer that he is, he certainly knows his risks, in his putting so much stock in this idea.

Chrysothemis, who suffers from disturbed psyche enough, does have a lot of music in E-Flat and in triple meter at that, but under Sinopoli, it is music that the more affirmative it sounds, the more tonally it is on the verge of turning the corner to lurch or go careening off the precipice. By the same token, the queen's music distractedly yet obsessively seeks stability, usually in musical terms of one of the royalty or domestic bliss motifs, with which this very tormented character can anchor her thought. Like Ashley, I am sure of Sinopoli working with compass in hand as how to clearly direct his forces through this complex work. Otherwise, we'd probably have so much bombast and superficial underlining of so much detail - never the case here.

Sinopoli's grasp of tonality in this score is as thorough as you'll find from any conductor who has approached it. In my estimation, he joins a small list of conductors whose work with this piece I would call great - Jochum, Bohm (from Dresden on DGG - still out of print), and Mitropoulos, and all of whom take the stage cuts. My wish is that Sinopoli might have opened one or two, instead of literally taking all of them. The broad tempos, and slight tendency to block certain passages tend to remind a little of Solti, the appeal to sensuality in the score, especially in the second part of the Recognition and Aegisth scenes, to Karajan yet this set convinces you that this set pretty much, from the podium perspective, stands on its own merits. Unlike Karajan, nothing orchestrally at least, for a moment, is on autopilot, as seemed to be a little the case the last time I have heard such estimable Strauss maestri Levine and Welser-Most conduct Elektra.

One can read in any musically annotated synopsis of Elektra of the bitonality of repeated alternating, then simultaneous triads in F MInor and B Major in the Klytaemnestra scene. Sinopoli brilliantly weaves the most climactic occurrence of this polytonality into the dramatic trajectory of Klytaemnestra's 'nightmare' monologue and thereby categorically reveals that the polarity that is central to the composer's mind for the long stretch is between the key areas of B Major and C Minor, as similar to the close of Zarathustra. Making such occurence apparently happen within any normal scheme of things, as with these triads, seems even more frightening than its standing alone, as it would in a more bombastic interpretation, as with Solti or a young Levine.

There is also, in so boldly relating stylistic disparity in this piece, quite another trajectory that spells out. The central scene between Elektra and her mother takes the listener as close to as far out as Strauss would ever take us, and then following this with the second Chrysothemis scene (though quite heavily cut here) and Recognition Scene, we are already more than beginning to hear the Strauss of such intimate conversational lyricism, as found from Rosenkavalier to follow through Intermezzo and Arabella to his swansong, Capriccio. And yet, Sinopoli is always acutely aware of every potentially tonally destabilizing moment that will crop up throughout the rest of the opera. Of those heard earlier, it is hard to shake off hearing bassons and horns let off as dogs in heat, the 'stifled breath' upward appoggiaturi from solo horn early on in the first Chrysothemis scene, the hideous whelps and moans from the brass in the fearful procession that announce Klytaemenstra's entrance, the inebriated lurching around of double basses, making almost triplet figures out of one of the procession motifs, some of this all culminating in the wildly animated accompaniment to "Was bluten muss?", that almost overwhelms our attention to what is being sung.

So, what of this Elektra as an opera recording? It seems otherwise that I am reviewing a recording of Strauss's greatest tone poem. It is as opera, two vivid (supporting) tenors apart, that things fall off a bit. Alessandra Marc certainly is nowhere short of the stamina to sing this most treacherous of all parts and convincingly portrays a woman clearly near the end of her tether. Tone tends to be hooty, and diction mushy; an overall sameness tends to take over, expressively. She sings at once at her most impassioned and intimate in feeling during the Recognition Scene, and is well able to capitalize here more than anywhere else, on Sinopoli's support.

Debroah Voigt sings very well, bringing out well the innocence of the Chrysothemis, but here is an interpretation that is a little slow to open out expressively. It is hardly less tiresome, in the interest of bringing out greater hysteria with this part, to encounter a wobbly or unsteady voice here, as this so often makes cliche out of such an approach to this music. Hanna Schwarz, soloist on Sinopoli's fine and underrated Mahler Third (perhaps DGG's best recording of this piece) by the way, is the Klytaemnestra here. Low notes are not too clearly dependable here, but of the three female protagonists hereand also among Klytaemnestras, one gets unfailingly from Schwarz the most subtle and pointed verbal insights, even if a little greater stamina is called for in closing passages to be anywhere nearly as ghoulishly menacing to her daughter, as for instance Lipovsek on the complete Sawallisch (EMI). Regina Resnik (whose peerlessly mysterious reading of Zarathustra's song from Mahler 3 on the classic Martinon/Chicago broadcast eloquently bespeaks her experience as a great Klytaemnestra), Jean Madeira, and Gusta Hammer (Jochum) are at least equally formidable.

Samuel Ramey is expressive and has sufficiently dark tone as Orest, but is a little choppy, all of the above a little remindful of Tom Krause on Nilsson/Solti. He also becomes a bit unstable vocally as his part becomes more animated, toward the moment of recognition, in his crucial scene with Marc. The Overseer of Helga Termer stands out among the female supporting cast, for incisiveness, also the ruling virtue with the Young Servant of Michael Howard (the fine Mime during Sinopoli's Ring for only one summer at Bayreuth several years later). Siegfried Jerusalem is a suitably imperious and incisive Aegisth, tantalized and enticed almost most of all by Sinopoli's play with the sonorities and subtle touches with flutes and harp - what little lost love Strauss ever had for tenors.

David H. Spence

CD1

1. "Wo bleibt Elektra?"
2. "Allein! Weh, ganz allein."
3. "Ah! das Gesicht!"
4. "Was willst du? Seht doch dort!"
5. "Ich habe keine guten Nächte."

CD2

1. "Orest! Orest ist tot!"
2. "Nun denn, allein!"
3. "Orest! Orest! Es rührt sich niemand!"
4. "Es muss etwas geschehen sein"
5. "Elektra! Schwester!"

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