Strauss’ Electra Will Be Virtuosic, Volcanic

Sunday, May 1, 1 p.m., Orcas Center

— from Susannah Weaver —

Elektra

The Metropolitan Opera presents Stauss’ Elektra streaming live to Orcas Center on Sunday, May 1, at 1:00 pm.

The genius director Patrice Chéreau didn′t live to see his great Elektra production (previously presented in Aix and Milan) make it to the stage of the Met. But his overpowering vision lives on with soprano Nina Stemme—unmatched today in the heroic female roles of Strauss and Wagner—who portrays Elektra′s primal quest for vengeance for the murder of her father, Agamemnon. Legendary mezzo-soprano Waltraud Meier is chilling as Elektra′s fearsome mother, Klytämnestra. Soprano Adrianne Pieczonka and bass-baritone Eric Owens are Elektra’s troubled siblings. Chéreau′s musical collaborator Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts Strauss′ mighty take on Greek myth.

Shortly after conquering the opera world with his scandalous masterpiece Salome, Richard Strauss turned to Hugo von Hofmannsthal′s recent adaptation of Sophocles′s Electra for his next project. The resulting opera is an intense and still-startling work that unites the commanding impact of Greek tragedy with the unsettling insights of early-20th-century Freudian psychology. The drama unfolds in a single act of rare vocal and orchestral power.

“The director Patrice Chéreau’s production of Strauss’s Elektra… has already been deemed a landmark of contemporary opera staging… Nothing prepared me for the seething intensity, psychological insight and sheer theatrical inventiveness of this production… ” –The New York Times

Tickets for The Met: Live in HD’s Elektra are $20, $15 for students, $2 off for Orcas Center members, and may be purchased at www.orcascenter.org or by calling 376-2281 ext. 1 or visiting the Orcas Center Box Office open Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 12-2 pm. $5 subsidized tickets available at the Box Office. For more information about Orcas Center’s 2016 season visit www.orcascenter.org.