SuperHeroBooks - Richard Strauss - Elektra / Levine, Nilsson, The Metropolitan Opera
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List Price: $22.95
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Manufacturer: Paramount
Starring: Birgit Nilsson, Leonie Rysanek, Donald McIntyre, James Levine
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786300217843
Format: Classical
ISBN: 6300217841
Label: Paramount
Manufacturer: Paramount
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Paramount
Release Date: 1992-12-22
Studio: Paramount
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: I wish it had been better
Comment: For me, Strauss' tale of ghastly family dysfunction has always been an opera better heard on record than seen in the opera house. Its hysterical atmosphere and bizarre characters, while providing tremendous opportunities for singers to display their power, range and stamina, also seem to encourage overacting and hamhanded emoting. Such is the case here. Mignon Dunn as Clytemnestra is the least offensive and actually delivers some truly beautiful singing. But soprano Rysanek whose histrionic skills--for reasons completely unclear to me--were considered non-pareil delivers another ourtrageous performance with excesses that seem based on the worst excesses of the silent screen era. Donald MacIntyre as Orest sings decently but visually is just ridiculous. Nilsson is past her vocal prime but at least does not embarass herself as do her colleagues. To her credit she underplays much of her role allowing the fevered music to make all of the necessary points. Even so, without the benefit of aesthetic distance, the viewer can see a certain calculatedness to her movements, a quality that belies the out-of-control emotionalism that she is trying to portray. The star of this show is Levine whose conducting is all that that one could wish for. As I suggested earlier, there are certain operas that call for physical acting skills that are just beyond the abilities of the average and even great singer. Watch Renee Fleming's Blanche DuBois in Previn's "Streetcar Named Desire" for a recent example. While vocally they can be quite pleasing and even thrilling, the talent to translate their musical gifts into believable behavioral action is not always theirs to command. Unfortunately, I feel that many of we opera fans have learned to settle for and accept second rate and really rather silly exibitions as examples of great art. No wonder Callas seemed so revolutionary.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Flawless and beautiful Elektra
Comment: Thank you very much to the Met for this beautiful production, specially for the amazing Nilsson and his partner the incomparable Rysanek. You will enjoy every moment and every note.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Some corrections to prior postings
Comment: I thought I would add some corrections:
1. this performance was not Nilsson's return to the MET after a five year absence. Her first Elektra in 1980 was on February 1 and this recording is from February 16.
2. this performance was not "cut" due to her vocal condition but observes the standard cuts the MET has always followed. There never has been a note complete perfomance of Elektra at the MET (and rarely at any other opera house and on few recordings)
3. This was not Nilssons last fully staged opera performance at the MET -the following year (1981) she sang some performances of Die Frau ohne Schatten singing the Dyer's Wife.
Customer Rating:
Summary: GREAT THEATE
Comment: Both Nilsson and Rysanek (sick and with high fever) are not in their prime, but WHAT a great piece of THEATRE! Nilsson's involvment in this role is overwhelming too such a degree that you can ignore that her voice sounds a bit worn. The public roars - and rightly so. If you want to experience Nilsson as one of the truly great actors of the operatic scene, buy this DVD at once. I was deeply moved and cried at the end.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Nilsson's dramatic acting makes the best of things
Comment: This is a February 1980 live performance from the Met, with optional English subtitles.
The staging is the rather traditional and appropriate cavelike or dungeon setting. Costumes for Elektra (Birgit Nilsson) and her sister Chrisothemis (Leonie Rysanek) are also bland, which is probably also appropriate for those who have been held prisoner for some years. Klytemnestra, Elektra's mother (Mignon Dunn) wears the very colorful vestiments befitting a self-indulgent queen.
Now comes the hard part: I found Birgit Nilsson's voice to be at times wobbly and sometimes shrieking. It might be a personal preference, as the character Elektra certainly has a lot to shriek about. And yes, it was a live performance, near the end of Nilsson's career, but the DVD notes do proclaim "her vocal powers are as glorious as ever." Personally, I was disappointed in what sounded like inconsistent singing.
On the other hand, her dramatic powers were impressive. Nilsson was totally involved throughout the entire opera, and her gestures and facial reactions to the other characters added tremendously to the overall impact. We should remember that she was a pioneer between the time when opera singers tended to stand stiffly and sing, into today's era where we expect acting and reacting which the camera's eye allows us to see.
This performance features an extremely dramatic finale where Nilsson and Rysanek both collapse and die--it is dramatic and moving, and brings down the house at the Met.
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Editorial Reviews:
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It's hard to imagine confirmed Straussians not wanting this starry Metropolitan Opera performance of Elektra. Strauss and his librettist, Hugo von Hofmannstahl, transformed Sophocles' take on Homer's tale into a harrowing opera noir. Elektra lives for one reason, to kill her mother, Klytämnestra, and her stepfather, Aegisth, the murderers of her father, Agamemnon. In contrast to Elektra's vengeful obsession, her sister Chrysothemis desires to get on with life. When their long-missing brother, Orestes, returns to do the deed, Elektra celebrates with a dance of death and, her sole purpose in life fulfilled, dies. Strauss joined the hermetic plot to music of the utmost opulence, violent and yearning by turns, evoking the cardinal principles of Greek tragedy - pity and terror. This Met performance from February 1980 is notable for the playing of the orchestra, itself a major factor in any performance of Elektra, and for the three female leads. James Levine's conducting is full of passion, lyrical when it needs to be, but crushingly powerful in the big moments. Strauss' orchestration sometimes becomes chamber music-delicate, eloquently done by the orchestra. Birgitt Nilsson and Leonie Rysanek were the leading Elektra and Chrysothemis of the day. Nilsson was in her 62nd year, still singing well, even in such a demanding role that taxes singers half her age. But despite small signs that she's husbanding her vocal resources and hints of wavering pitch that indicate tiring, she gives an overwhelmingly intense performance. The booklet notes say that Rysanek was ill with a 102 degree fever, but there's no indication of it in either her singing or her passionate acting as. Mezzo Mignon Dunn, the Klytämnestra, was a Met mainstay for 35 years, and if she lacked the superstar status of Nilsson and Rysanek she more than holds her own here, virtually dominating the stage in her scenes and fully capturing the character's pain and frustration. If the men are not quite up to these three formidable ladies, that's par for the Elektra course. The single set is of the dimly lit palace courtyard, identifiable as a place where bad things will happen. Herbert Graf's production and Paul Mills' stage direction are conventional, unimpeded by directorial novelty or conceptual misfires. Brian Large's video direction is not as effective or polished as his other Met productions; some moments obscured by darkness, others subverted by too-tight close-ups. The sound is also below the best that could be achieved in 1980, but good enough to do justice to the singing and the orchestra. --Dan Davis
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