[Met Performance] CID:255960



Elektra
Metropolitan Opera House, Fri, December 22, 1978




Elektra (53)
Richard Strauss | Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Elektra
Danica Mastilovic

Chrysothemis
Eva Marton

Klyt?mnestra
Mignon Dunn

Orest
Norman Bailey

Aegisth
Ragnar Ulfung

Overseer
Elizabeth Anguish

Serving Woman
Batyah Godfrey Ben-David

Serving Woman
Shirley Love

Serving Woman
Ariel Bybee

Serving Woman
Loretta Di Franco

Serving Woman
Alma Jean Smith

Confidant
Suzanne Der Derian

Trainbearer
Linda Mays

Young Servant
Charles Anthony

Old Servant
Edward Ghazal

Guardian
John Cheek


Conductor
Erich Leinsdorf


Production
Herbert Graf

Designer
Rudolf Heinrich

Stage Director
Wolfgang Weber





Elektra received five performances this season.

Review 1:

Manuela Hoelterhoff in the Wall Street Journal

"Elektra" can be riveting in its orchestral intensity and malignant atmosphere, And last Friday received an at times exciting performance. Based on Sophocles? play, the opera concentrates on Elektra?s ferocious revenge of Agamemnon?s murder. The part is a strenuous one (the first New York Elektra fainted after the premiere), calling for a soprano with a steel throat and steady nerves. Danica Mastilovic, a sturdy Yugoslav, got through it all without taking ? so it seemed ? a deep breath and with a minimum of sagging phrases. As her sister Chrysothemis, Eva Marton proved equally dauntless, soaring through her music with impressive ease.


The others in the cast were less impressive. As the gross crazed Klytaemnestra, for example, Mignon Dunn's singing was really too beautiful to convey the queen's guilt and fear (though this may be a matter of taste). Norman Bailey presented a surprisingly dreary Orest and Ragnar Ulflung, usually a fine singer, missed turning Aegisth's brief appearance into a vignette of terror and decadence. Erich Leinsdorf and the Orchestra amply provided the emotionally pitched moods and soaring climaxes that disturb the house of Atreus.



Search by season: 1978-79

Search by title: Elektra,



Met careers