"Elektra" a display of passion, drama

Seattle Opera began its 2008-09 season with the voluptuous melody and grand Egyptian setting of Verdi's "Aida." It would be hard to come up with a stronger contrast than Richard Strauss' "Elektra," as conductor Lawrence Renes and director Chris Alexander made clear recently when they talked about their forthcoming production.

Completed 100 years ago, and the beginning of a collaboration with librettist Hugo van Hofmannsthal that would last a quarter-century and produce another five wonderful operas, this "tragedy in one act" takes its story from the Greek myth of the doom-stricken house of Atreus and intensifies its impact with music of unprecedented violence and complexity.

Rather like "The Rite of Spring" for Stravinsky five years later, it proved to be the ne plus ultra of modernism for composer Strauss: Both men, it seems, realized they had reached a point beyond which any further undermining of traditional musical values would produce diminishing returns.

Stravinsky turned to the neoclassicism of pieces like "The Soldier's Tale," while for Strauss and Hofmannsthal the astonishing and delightful next step turned out to be their most popular creation, "Der Rosenkavalier."

Commentators justly draw attention to the sheer astringency of the score of "Elektra." From a composer who had already established his modernist and psychologically penetrative credentials in "Salome," this drama of a woman's revenge naturally drew clamorous orchestral writing and dissonant superimpositions of mutually contradictory chords that grind terrifyingly on the ear.

Yet it would be a mistake to emphasize this side of the work without acknowledging the intermittent warmth and lyricism that also underlie the central character.

Electra (to use the English spelling of her name, rather than Strauss' German) is not merely a violently inclined madwoman — her madness and her lust for vengeance are the twisted results of love for her dead father Agamemnon and longing for family happiness.

Both have been unhinged by the trauma of Agamemnon's murder by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus.

This shattering experience, intensifying the "Electra complex" (posited by Jung as a daughter-father counterpart to Freud's "Oedipus complex"), is just one psychologically significant element in the plot; Freud's emphasis on the importance of dreams, too, is evoked by the nightmares that have poisoned Clytemnestra's sleep and also torture Electra.

Freudian aspect

Discussing his preparations for the new production, Renes stressed this Freudian aspect. He spoke also of the need to create "the sharpest possible edges" from the orchestral score, not merely for their own sake but to heighten by contrast the effect of the lyrical passages that are by no means lacking.

He characterized his collaboration with director Alexander as "perfect." Alexander in turn spoke with warm appreciation of the way Renes has given clear leadership to several singers new to their roles, relieving their insecurities and freeing them to think about the dramatic aspects of their work.

Why does Electra wait for the return of her exiled brother Orestes to exact vengeance instead of doing the deed herself? According to Alexander, it is partly because of the womanhood she shares with her mother, but also because, "at that time, any such act was regarded as the task of a man."

He declares himself delighted that the singers playing Electra in both casts, Janice Baird and Jayne Casselman, are both able to realize the lyrical elements of their parts as well as the more obvious violent touches.

This is the second "Elektra" production for the director, who chose a modern setting for his previous production, in Germany, but is this time staying in "the archaic period, the way it's supposed to be."

But his involvement in the work is much deeper than a mere two productions might suggest.

His father was the baritone Carlos Alexander, one of the leading exponents of the role of Orestes in the mid-20th century; and Astrid Varnay, who sang opposite Carlos several times as first the leading Electra of her day and later an equally remarkable Clytemnestra, was Chris Alexander's godmother. (You can still see and hear Varnay's riveting portrayal of that tormented queen in a film version of the opera on a Deutsche Grammophon DVD directed by Götz Friedrich and conducted by Karl Böhm.)

Tradition is not always a benign influence on art — Mahler, recognizing its tendency to absolve the artist from thinking for himself, went so far as to observe that "tradition is slovenliness."

But when Alexander talks about the production to be unveiled Saturday, there is no mistaking the meticulous thought that, along with artistic passion and the warmth of family associations, is likely to present us with an "Elektra" at once fiercely tragic and transcendently inspiring.

Bernard Jacobson: bernardijacobson@comcast.net