Elektra at the SF Opera

There are a few operas that demand a legendary performer at the top of their game to be effective. Bellini's 1831 opera Norma is one and Richard Strauss's 1909 Elektra is another. For instance, in 1991 the San Francisco Opera presented Welsh soprano Gwyneth Jones as Elektra in a great, terrifying production by Andrei Serban which stunned audiences, but five years later the exact same production was revived with the soprano Elizabeth Connell and the opera fell flat. Similarly, in 2017 soprano Christine Goerke let loose dramatically and vocally in a new production from Keith Warner that was electrifying, but the same show in a current revival with Russian soprano Elena Pankratova also deflates in comparison. (All production photos are by Cory Weaver.)

Warner's concept production with a handsome set by Polish designer Boris Kudlička is set in a modern museum of antiquities where a museumgoer hides out after closing time and proceeds to have a nervous breakdown while reflecting on her own personal family trauma. Goerke managed to power through most of the absurdities of the conceptual staging, but Pankratova seems to be channeling a middle-aged museumgoer rather than the vengeful bundle of rage that drives this opera's title role.

It's too bad because the contributions of everybody else involved in this production are stellar, starting with the outrageously huge orchestra led by Music Director Eun Sun Kim, who coaxed a performance that was an extraordinary balancing act between transparent clarity and loud, thunderous climaxes. After seeing the opera on a Thursday night from the orchestra section, I returned for the Sunday matinee and stood in the balcony where the sound is amazing, which confirmed the dullness of Pankratova's singing and the excitement of Kim's conducting.

The star of the show was soprano Elza van den Heever as Elektra's sister Chrysothemis who is trapped in the cursed house of Atreus with her murderous relatives. Elza may be the most celebrated Strauss soprano in the world right now, particularly after her recent Salome performances at the Met. It was a special treat hearing her large, gorgeous soprano sailing over the orchestra, an offstage chorus at one point, and the titular heroine. The performance was a complete triumph, and at a certain point I wished the opera had been about Chrysothemis.

One of Strauss's most endearing compositional habits is how he creates soprano roles for every stage of a career. There are a few singers who have sung Chrysothemis, graduated to Elektra, and ended with Klytamnestra, the murderous mother. It's a juicy role that can steal the show, and Michaela Schuster sang it well, but she didn't have much to work with when interacting with Pankratova, so her scenes didn't generate much excitement.

Over the first half of the one-act opera, there are no male voices at all, so the arrival of brother Orest, sung here by bass-baritone Kyle Ketelsen, always comes as a sonic relief. Ketelsen sounded great and was convincing as a cool, professional killer bent on vengeance for the murder of his father Agamemnon.

In a bit of luxury casting, tenor William Burden appears briefly as Aegisth, Klytamnestra's lover and co-conspirator in Agamemnon's murder. The role often goes to famous old tenors at the end of their careers, but Burden looks and sounds like he's ready to keep singing for decades.

The first time I went to Elektra at the SF Opera in the late 1970s, I walked out after 30 minutes because there were no supertitles and it just seemed to be three women screaming in German over a monster orchestra. In 1991, I volunteered as a supernumerary slave in that legendary Serban production, and once the score of Elektra gets into your neural pathways, it never leaves. So even with subpar casting it was a pleasure to return to that overheated, decadent, maximalist music again.