Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Richard Strauss' Elektra Met's Saturday Matinee


The Saturday matinee broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera on December 26 will be Elektra by Richard Strauss. Classic 99.1 KFUO-FM will carry the broadcast beginning at 12:00 noon (CT). Running time will be approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes.

Elektra will be conducted by Fabio Luisi and will star Susan Bullock in the title role and Deborah Voigt as Chrysothemis.

The fine folks at the ClassicLive web site say:
Elektra is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal adapted from his drama of 1903—the first of many such collaborations between composer and librettist. It was first performed at the Dresden State Opera on January 25, 1909, and remains a part of the standard operatic repertoire.

There's a very interesting discussion of Elektra, complete with videos, at the web site The Awl. Seth Colter Walls, Choire Sicha, and Matthew Gallaway compare the impact of Elektra to punk rock, and argue that Richard Strauss "is one of the most important composers of the 20th Century. In the manner of say, Picasso, he paved the way for the atonal dissonance and 12-tone scales that would come to define progressive music for the next 100 years or more."

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