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Sun, 25th January 2009 - Mon, 2nd February 2009

Richard Strauss's opera.

The inner court of the palace in Mycenae is the scene of the drama. Since Clytemnestra, in league with her paramour, Aegisthus, has compassed the murder of her husband, Agamemnon, her daughter Elektra lives only with the thought of vengeance. She exists like a wild beast, banished from the society of human beings, a butt of ridicule to the servants, a horror to all, only desirous of the blood of her mother and Aegisthus in atonement for that of her father. The murderers too have no rest. Fear haunts them. Elektra’s sister, Chrysothemis, is entirely unlike her.

She craves marriage. But it is in a disordered way that her desire for husband and child is expressed. Clytemnestra also is morbidly ill. Deeply she deplores her misdeed, but for this very reason has completely surrendered herself to the unworthy Aegisthus. So frightfully do her dreams torment her that she even comes to seek help from the hated Elektra in her love in the inner court. It is the latter’s first triumph in all her years of suffering. But it is short-lived, for Clytemnestra mocks her with the news that Orestes has died in a distant land. A terrible blow this for Elektra, who had hoped that Orestes would return and wreak vengeance on the queen and Aegisthus.

Now the daughters must be the instruments of vengeance. And as Chrysothemis, shocked, recoils from the task, Elektra determines to complete it alone. She digs up in the courtyard the very axe with which her father was slain and which she had buried in order to give it to her brother on his return.

1hour 45 minutes