The fourth reprise of Electricity by De Nederlandse Opera is over halfway through. In the final performances, two fresh dramatic sopranos take over.
Why is an opera rerun, even as many as four times? At the sleep-inducing Don Giovanni in De Nederlandse Opera's previous season - also a revival - this was perhaps a logical question. As it turned out, the decision had already been made when the first series was contracted. And yes, then you are stuck with it. Even if the performance turns out to be desperate.
At Electricity things are very different. The direction by Willy Decker was and is highly appreciated. After 1996, 2000 and 2006, it is now at the Stopera again. I went looking for answers and ended up with Klaus Bertisch, dramaturge at De Nederlandse Opera. "You make an investment and you want to show it as much as possible."
Does this refer to good entrepreneurship? "Cost is important to us. We could cut back on the set. And the choir; there is only a very small choir share in this opera so we asked the Toonkunstkoor Amsterdam for that." This is in Music Theatre's new programme line to involve more local amateur ensembles in productions.
"But there is a 100-piece orchestra and the soloists, of course. You can't possibly skimp on that". Bertisch explains that there are only five (!) sopranos worldwide who can sing the role of Elektra at this level. Then you start listening to the singer in question quite differently. "Elektra and her sister Chrysothemis, both dramatic sopranos with demanding parts, are therefore performed by four singers. Doing the full series of nine performances is unhealthy and impracticable."
Last Saturday, the second Elektra on stage was Linda Watson. The second Chrysothemos, Ricarda Merbeth, preceded her one performance earlier. Together with mezzo-soprano Michaela Schuster, who plays the chilling mother Klytaemnestra, the trio form an impressive battery of women. Richard Strauss in his element.
The composer was inspired by the actress for whom librettist Hugo von Hoffmansthal had previously written the play Electricity had written in 1903. The highly dramatic Gertrud Eysoldt. She spoke of the role in a letter: "All wild pains... this incessant rutting churning of my blood...". And about her director Max Reinhardt: "It is charming to listen to Reinhardt when he speaks of what slumbers unspoken in people - but always he is concerned with man, catapulting himself into the universe."
Elektra has fallen prey to desolation - her royal white clothes are dishevelled, her hair falls in ropes around her face. There is no turning back; she has strayed too far from what we call life and thinks only in terms of destruction.
Linda Watson sings this Elektra with chilling conviction. From her primal scream at the beginning, "Allein", to the cry for her brother at the end, "Orest", her shrill sound clasps your heart. But it is only when her tones become calm and quiet as she whisperily calls out to her murdered father Agamemnon that you are truly nailed to your seat - then you hear the inevitability of what is to come: the downfall of herself, her hated mother and his new love, Aegisthos.
While Watson seems a sentiment of Nietzsche, Michaela Schuster as Chrysothemos is more one of Freud. She almost frolics, in a white cocktail dress, hair stiff with hairspray. Only in her empty, open-hanging purse can you tell that she too feels lost. But her attachment to life is greater. She follows her urges: she doesn't need revenge, she just wants to love and give birth.
The difference between the two sisters, between the two singers, is stark. Watson sounds dissolved but has the magnificent combination of controlled feralness. Schuster sounds warm and at times desperate. However, she is not devoid of hope - it makes her want to live. It is as if the two have never done anything but live together in a dysfunctional family. You cannot help but be swept up in this destruction, propelled by the wall of sound that the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Marc Albrecht pours over you.
Electricity can still be seen on 25, 28 and 31 October at the Music Theatre. For more information and tickets, visit the Netherlands Opera website.
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