Elektra

Opera in one act by Richard Strauss
Text by Hofmannsthal

Like nearly all the works of this composer in larger form, "Elektra" gave rise to a merry war among the critics. It was roundly abused and ardently praised, but both friendly and adverse reviews have merely served to extend its fame, and although the first performance onlhy took place in the Royal Dresden Opera House on January 25, 1909, it was billed for production within a year in both Americas, as well as in the principal music centers of Europe.

Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides all based tragedies on the story of Elektra, but it may be conceded that while the characters in the old Greeks plays are merely puppets in the hands of the Olympian gods, Hofmannsthal preferred to base his book on the primitive passions of humanity.

Klytemnestra, with the aid of her lover Aegisthus, murders her royal husband, Agamemnon. the, believing that if allowed to grao to manhood, Orestes will in turn slay her to avenge his father's death, she plans the destruction of her own son. A pilgrim steals him away from the palace, however, and removes him to a place of safety. Elektr, one of the daughters of Agamemnon and Klytemnestra, cherishes hope that his brother may survive as an instrument of destruction, but failing this, determines to be the avenger herself. Chrysosthemis, her sister, accepts conditions as they are, and becomes the favorite in the wretched househould, where Elektra is the drudge. Tortured by an evil dream, Klytemnestra asks Elektra to interpret it for her. She replies that "the dreams will only cease when the blood of a certain person has been shed", meaning her mother.

Wishing to know Elektra's precise feelings toward her, Klytemnestra causes the girl to be informed that Orestes is dead: killed by a fall from his horse.

Klytemnestra and Aegisthus are conviced from Elektra's attitude under this great grief that she too is dangerous, but before they can destroy her, their plot is revealed by Chrysosthemis. Thus Elektra, already bent on murder, must either slay or be slain.

Orestes, now grown into manhood, returns to carry out the vengeance which has been the one object of his life. Elektra does not know him, but when he has convinced her, by means of a ring, that he is indeed her brother, she is overjoyed. She digs up the hatchet with which their father was slain, gives it to Orestes, and almost forces him into the castle where the guilty mother and her paramour are asleep. The death of Klyemnestra is announced a moment later by a frightful shriek. the Aegishtus runs forth, closely followed by Orestes, who strikes him down. Elektra, drunk with blood, dances in mad exultation until she falls dead.