Strauss: Elektra-Complete Opera

I am extremely grateful that we have a record of Karajan's Elektra, an opera that was among his favorites but which he abandoned after 1964. Orfeo's sound, derived from the Austrian Radio broadcast of August 17, 1964, is an improvement on previous issues. It's in mono, and fortunately the voices don't wander off mike with rare exceptions; the balance also allows us to gain a reasonably good image of the Vienna Phil. (if only the recording had been done in FM stereo to capture more of their glorious contribution). the overall result is quite listenable, despite the expected absence of bass that is inherent in an AM transmission.Karajan's view of the score is searing and intense. He doesn't carry us into the realm of frenzied psychopathology the way Solti does in his famous Decca recording headed by an incandescent Birgit Nilsson, with the Vienna Phil. again as the orchestra. I wouldn't want to part with either, although it must be said immediately that Solti has the edge not only in sound but in his singing cast, with every role managed superlatively (with the exception of a frail Chrysothemis from Marie Collier -- her tremulousness could even be seen as an asset, however).The version that this live performance competes with head to head is Mitropoulos' in 1957, also from Salzburg with the Vienna Phil. and in similar, reasonable mono. Both of the lead sopranos, Inge Borkh for Mitropoulos and Astrid Varnay for Karajan, possess the stage fiercely, as Elektra must. Tearing the score to shreds if need be, Mitropoulos brings us closer to tragic catharsis than perhaps even the composer himself could have imagined. Borkh had a leathery voice but made up in dramatic terror for what she lacked in beauty of tone. Varnay is stately and commanding more than mad. By this stage of her career, although only in her mid-forties, Varnay was a few years past her vocal prime. The voice was never beautiful, and at times she lunges at top notes that may or may not come off as written. Even so, her presence as a vocal actress is backed up with a powerful vocal range. (Earlier reviewers who hear perfect execution are living in fantasy land.) In both performances the supporting cast, all accomplished veterans, throw themselves into their roles. For those who complain of Hillebrecht's less than stellar Chrysothemis, I'd respond that Kurt Boehme's cavernous Orest for Mitropoulos is too old and ponderous to be Elektra's brother. It's as if Fafner wandered into the wrong opera.Speaking personally, I find the Karajan version easier to live with, subtler in its musicality, far more disciplined in the orchestral part, and equally tragic. Here is arguably the greatest opera conductor of the century immersed in one of his favorite scores. He weaves the magic essential to a classic performance.

After some blog or forum recomedation I came to this version and must say it is astonishing. I liked most Nilsson w/Solti in Vienna, and w/Bohm in Dresden (this version made me like the opera). Also Dresden Borhk-Bohm. But now I need not choose one and love to listen them all.

Completely satisfied with product and service.

Nel caso di Elektra di Richard Strauss siamo di fronte ad una delle opere meglio rappresentate nella storia del disco (e anche in DVD), potendo contare su almeno quattro-cinque edizioni - affatto non sovrapponibili, ma caratterizzate da altrettanto solide visioni interpretative - di altissimo livello, andando da Reiner a Mitropoulos, da Solti ad Abbado, passando attraverso Böhm.Tale è anche l’edizione qui recensita che contiene la registrazione dal vivo della recita tenutasi il 17 agosto 1964 al Festival di Salisburgo, direttore Herbert von Karajan alla guida dei Wiener Philarmoniker, che in effetti detengono il quasi monopolio delle riproduzioni discografiche di Elektra.Dalle battute iniziali alla conclusione dell'opera - che Karajan aveva più volte diretto in gioventù anche alla presenza dello stesso compositore, ricevendone meritati elogi, ma che non avrebbe mai più eseguito, nemmeno in studio - il direttore punta su sonorità decisamente violente, in un clima di sovraeccitazione quasi in preda ad uno stato dionisiaco, immergendosi completamente nella vicenda e uscendone stremato.In ciò Karajan è perfettamente assecondato dai mirabili Wiener, come pure dai cantanti, sui quali svettano Astrid Varnay e Martha Mödl, rispettivamente nei panni della protagonista e di Klythämnestra.La prima, grazie ad un fortissimo temperamento, disegna un’Elektra istintiva, quasi animalesca, piena di rabbia e carica di vendetta, in ciò supportata da una voce non omogenea, ma proprio per questo ancor più credibile nei momenti di slancio e negli acuti al limite della forzatura (vocalmente solo la Nilsson avrebbe fatto meglio); accanto a lei la Mödl, dal bellissimo timbro ambrato, appare una arcigna calcolatrice, mai lontanamente sfiorata dal dubbio né tanto meno dal rimorso, così convincente nella risata perfida e liberatoria all’annuncio (in verità falso) della morte di Orest.In piena regola, sia vocalmente che sotto il profilo interpretativo, appaiono anche gli altri cantanti, a cominciare da Wächter, convincente ed intenso Orest, come pure la Hillebrecht, peraltro alle prese con la figura meno appariscente di Chrysothemis, e James King quale Aegisthus.Difficile, al termine della recita, non restare impressionati ed attoniti per le forti emozioni suscitate durante l’ascolto come accadde allora al fortunato pubblico (e probabilmente allo stesso Karajan) presente nel Großes Festspielhaus, che decretò il pieno successo di questa mirabile Elektra.In conclusione, siamo di fronte ad una grandissima edizione - come sempre ben curata dai tecnici dell’ORFEO - di questo capolavoro, assolutamente da non perdere.

Herbert von Karajan's 1964 Salzburg Elektra has seen several incarnations on disc. I myself own a MELODRAM recording of the August 11 performance, recording which was pretty abysmal: thin and muffled sound, bad balance between orchestra and singers, no orchestral detail, etc. It was probably an in-house.The present release, of the August 17 performance, is quite a different matter. The sound is clear (though not ideal), the balance between singers and orchestra is appropriate, and one is finally able to hear some of Karajan's fine orchestral work. There is almost no audience noise, and very little interference from stage noise. For a live recording from 1964, it's fine. I mean, sure, actually being in Salzburg in 1964 would have been better, but since that is not an option, and since 1964 was before the time of hi-fi or digital recordings of live performances, this is pure gold.The problem of historic live recordings of opera is a dramatic one for opera lovers, audiophiles and fans of a particular conductor or singer: it is hard to find sonic perfection, yet the search is undying. This is probably as good as it gets for this performance at this point. Still, one never knows, and other gems might be unearthed. I thought we had reached the top with Karajan's 1952 Bayreuth Tristan when Orfeo released their remastering. And yet, then I discovered DS Classics' (Urania's) version which used a different set of tapes from Martha Moedl's private collection, and the bar was suddenly raised. Maybe a different set of tapes will turn up. By the way, for a really, really good live recording of a Karajan recording from that pre-digital era, try the 1974 Salzburg Meistersinger with the Berlin Philharmonic on sale from eBay's seller premiereopera: the clean, virtually-hi-fi tapes were lovingly and respectfully transferred by the seller, resulting in a live recording where you can really hear everything -- at times, you'd almost think it was a studio recording. Or the 1977 Karajan Salzburg Salome from Celestial Audio. The excellent 1971 Salzburg Otello from Opera d'Oro is another good example.Speaking of sonic problems, a word about the Salzburg venue where this was recorded. The Grosses Festspielhaus, gigantic and cavernous though it may be, has clear, precise acoustics. Similar to Carnegie Hall without the bounce and reverb (and the boom), it affords a very analytic "view" of both orchestra and singers. This allowed Karajan to play with dynamics and over-control his orchestra, confident that the audience would be able to catch all the detail anyway. This approach might however be the source of problems for the then-primitive microphone placement for live recordings.Karajan's relationship with Elektra was strange. Apparently he loved it a lot, he just couldn't stand the emotional strain of conducting it, and he performed it once in his early conducting days (Strauss attended the performance), and then two years in a row in Salzburg, in 1964 and 1965. Never in a studio, which is a shame. I would love to have heard him do it with the Berlin Philharmonic. So this particular document is of prime interest. [However, the same dearth applies to Die Frau Ohne Schatten, which as far as I can ascertain he conducted only on those two famed nights upon leaving the Wiener Staatsoper in June of 1964, and never again. So the claim of emotional strain might not be telling the whole story. Some operas he returned to again and again in his career. Some he didn't. With these two operas we weren't as fortunate as with Trovatore or Tristan or Otello...]First, the caveats. If one compares Karajan to Solti, or Boehm, some of Karajan's tempi are broader, and his handling of the orchestra is more careful (lightening it up, probably also for the singers' benefit). Savage more sparingly than Solti, attentive always. Varnay was just slightly past her prime in 1964, and her top notes are sometimes thin and strained. She reaches them fine, though, and like Nilsson seems to be made not of flesh but of steel. Moedl was also no spring chicken (vocally) at this point. More on her later. This is not a cast of young leads, but of seasoned pros. And fantastic pros, too.Now for the positive.Despite her vocal age, Varnay sings a great Elektra here. Like Nilsson, she is capable of exercising uncanny control over her huge, huge instrument. God, she can pierce an orchestra and fill a hall, but in her recognition scene she sounds tender and lovely, and her pianissimi are sometimes exquisite. I never particularly loved her voice (there was something "cold" about it, a feeling I often had about Flagstad too), but she can certainly sing, and all her notes except perhaps one are sure, steady, and perfectly pitched. Heroic to say the least (I don't know if Elektra is the most difficult role for a Wagnerian/Straussian soprano, but it must be up there in the top three). A herculean Elektra. There is one difference compared to Nilsson: with Nilsson, you never heard the effort.Martha Moedl was nothing if not problematic, even in her prime years as a "Heldensopran" (1950-1955 ca.). Her attacks were uncouth, her high notes often shrill, her vibrato erratic, her registers uneven. She was intensely dramatic, intensely sensitive, and intensely musical, and always interesting, but her voice was all over the place. She was unpredictable. Then, when she "lost" her voice (more or less) in the late 1950s/early '60s and reverted to mezzo, she ended up with a dangerous wobble and no high notes (even for a mezzo). A similar thing happened to Dernesch in the late 1970s, but she always preserved the beauty of what notes she had left. In this particular production of Elektra, Moedl's wobble has not exactly disappeared, but is minimal (compared to her Nurse in the previous year's Frau ohne Schatten from Munich conducted by Keilberth, a role that also has more high notes): her voice has some of the sharpness of years gone. She is clear and dramatic, and not bothersome at all. Actually, she gives a very fine performance, and exercises a lot of control on her voice. True, her last high note at the end of her dialogue with Elektra is just awful, but she manages to get up there, and everything else up to that point is quite good, or better, and she acts the hell out of the part. One can understand every word she says, and her singing is careful, elegant and precise, often beautiful. A real pro.Hillebrecht as Elektra's sappy sister gets a bad reputation, but I found her singing quite good. She sounds like a fine Straussian singer in, it must be said, a rather tough, thankless role. Karajan's original choice for the role was Rysanek, who apparently backed out. Eberhard Waechter is fine as Orest, and the fifth maid is Lucia Popp! And the great James King in his prime is totally wasted as Aegist, but who's complaining?This recording allows us to finally hear Karajan's Wiener Philharmoniker in the performance, and they do a fantastic job. In the Melodram release, the orchestra sounded distant and muffled, and practically all detail was lost. Here, one can really hear their work (though for my taste they should be even more up-front and should drown the singers a bit more, and undeniably there are still problems with the internal balance of the orchestra itself). As usual with the best Karajan (most often in live performances of opera), he manages to be both energetic and exquisite in his handling of the orchestra: there is a lot of wonderful orchestral detail I personally had never heard before from any conductor (this is the kind of score where one unceasingly discovers something), there is extremely careful attention to every nuance of the score, and YET Karajan manages to accompany the drama with the appropriate energy. There is love but also fire in his performance.Some of that energy sometimes (not always) disappeared when he went into the recording studios. As proof of that, please compare Karajan's live Salzburg Nozze di Figaro from 1974, released twice by Opera d'oro, with his bloodless studio recording from 1979 with almost the same cast. In the theater, he ran on a different level of adrenalin. In the quiet of the studio, he was often "distracted" by being able to concentrate on the details, whereas in the theater -- especially in Salzburg, where he was often also in charge of the staging -- his attention went to the big picture, and to the drama. For the singers too, singing for a microphone is not the same as singing for an audience; in the studio, they can whisper all they want, knowing a sound engineer will fix things in the mixing. In the theater, singers are also acting and moving around, and -- most importantly -- singing across a live orchestra to reach an audience. We who live in Italy and have to see films dubbed know the experience of listening to dialogue recorded in a studio in front of a mic, and it's a different dialogue altogether from the one recorded live on location or on a set!I mentioned before that some of his tempi are a little broad in this Elektra. Please don't misunderstand me. I don't mean bloodless, or boring. But I personally grew up with Solti's Elektra with Nilsson and Resnik, so I still have a tendency to mentally compare any new recording I hear to that one. In that respect, yes, Karajan's Elektra is sometimes a bit slower -- I checked Strauss's metronome markings for some scenes, and Karajan does take them slower than written, which is curious, given his usual perfectionism and faithfulness to the scores. But he is far from dead in the water. The performance works, and works gangbusters. This recording may well become a new reference point for me, alongside the Solti, the Boehm, and the early Mitropoulos from Florence. (Now there is a strange case: Mitropoulos's Elektra from the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (1950) is fast, nervous and savage, and Moedl (who still alternated dramatic soprano and mezzo parts) is spectacular, and spectacularly wild, as Klytemnaestra. The sound is bad in all available releases though, and the Elektra embarrassingly out of her depth as far as high notes are concerned. Mitropoulos's Salzburg performance from 1957 is elegant and polished, and very well sung and recorded, but comparatively plodding. It's like there is a different man at the helm.)A small parenthesis. Reviewers may quibble about this or that point, and find fault with a passage, a tempo, or a singer in a recording such as this one (while, curiously, always comparing it to the top five available). But, my point is, there is no "definitive" recording of any great work. There may be great conductors and singers, and not-so-great conductors and singers; there may be great orchestras and not-so-great orchestras. But why should we have to choose among the greats? Luckily, the prospect of being stranded on a desert island is somewhat unlikely, and we can have and enjoy multiple recordings of the same work. Any great can have an off-day, and any great recording may have flaws. For years (and to this day) I have compared every recording of Elektra to my first, the Solti/Nilsson DECCA recording. And yet, when I listen to that seminal interpretation, I usually skip the Marie Collier scenes: I simply do not like her. Does that diminish the greatness of that recording? Not one jot. Does it make me want to not own it? No. But the tendency of many reviewers is to set recordings (and conductors) in competition with each other, and to declare a winner at the end of the process. However, this is not a contest. Within a certain echelon of greatness, it makes precious little sense to make top-ten lists. Different interpretations are interesting because they are different, and each one of them adds something to the literature. In this recording, we can hear Karajan's interpretation. Is it the best, the worst, or in the middle? The question is pointless. Unless one is looking for the ONE recording to own, if one is to own only one. If someone were to press me for an answer to that question, then I would say that it is probably safer to start with a studio recording, where all the detail is clearly audible.Kudos to the Orfeo label for remastering this recording so well (from radio broadcast tapes, but they don't seem to specify the exact source material or talk about their remastering process: why doesn't anybody mention details like that?), and/or for being lucky enough to find such a clean, well-recorded master. In any case, thanks are due to them for releasing this in their "Festspieldokumente" series. For Karajan fans, and for those interested in Elektra, this is an absolute must. Until the next discovery.Most highly recommended.

Una delle più grandi esecuzioni di Karajan, orchestra sbalorditiva, cantanti bravissimi, registrazione con l'orchestra in primo piano mentre i cantanti sembrano un po lontani.