Richard Strauss's house

[Wanderer]

It got released yesterday and I think the Blu-ray at least is region free. I'll confirm upon delivery (presently its status reads "processing for dispatch").

[johnshade]

Re: Thielemann's Die Frau ohne Schatten DVD/BluRay

See the excerpts of this new video on YouTube. The staging follows the current trend of having a contemporary setting. I have seen the opera at the Met (Thielemann) and have the Solti DVD; these productions do the opera justice. With the staging of the new DVD as seen on YouTube, I will opt for the CD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-a4oY2dWxg

[jlaurson]

Re: Thielemann's Die Frau ohne Schatten DVD/BluRay

See the excerpts of this new video on YouTube. The staging follows the current trend of having a contemporary setting. I have seen the opera at the Met (Thielemann) and have the Solti DVD; these productions do the opera justice. With the staging of the new DVD as seen on YouTube, I will opt for the CD.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-a4oY2dWxg

oh, it wasn't that bad. unless of course you can't abide anything that adheres to "the current trend of having a contemporary setting".      very quaintly put.
for one, the opera is notoriously unstageable, anyway. and this story-within-a-story (more or less the story of the making of Boehm's first recordings of the same opera) is pretty cleverly done. too clever by half, admittedly... but altogether fine.

[madaboutmahler]

ADVERTISMENT!
To all my fellow Straussians! Have started a Blind Comparison here for Also Sprach Zarathustra, would be wonderful if you could take part. If you want to, please just post a comment on the thread!

[Wanderer]

It got released yesterday and I think the Blu-ray at least is region free. I'll confirm upon delivery (presently its status reads "processing for dispatch").

...months upon delivery would have been more accurate. The Blu-ray is indeed region free; a very good and inspired reading wasted on a mediocre staging that very rarely seems to justify the efforts of the singers and orchestra. Recommended on its musical merits alone.

[TheGSMoeller]

...months upon delivery would have been more accurate. The Blu-ray is indeed region free; a very good and inspired reading wasted on a mediocre staging that very rarely seems to justify the efforts of the singers and orchestra. Recommended on its musical merits alone.

It's a shame, I was excited for this, found some clips online and I will not be buying this

[Cato]

Dudes!

I could not believe it!  In the intervening months since I last checked, perhaps back in the winter, the Metropolitan Opera has released my favorite version of Elektra on DVD.  Hildegard Behrens, Brigitte Fassbänder, Deborah Voigt (before her weight loss: it is interesting to see Behrens put her into an armlock!)  and James Levine conducting.

Wait until you see Behrens climb onto a huge fallen horse statue, shake her fist at the sky, and sing: "Agamemnon hört dich!"

For some reason the Amazon image is not loading: so, from the "Met Opera Shop" we have this:





As the one reviewer (so far) says: "Buy it while you can!"

[Cato]

Dudes!

I could not believe it!  In the intervening months since I last checked, perhaps back in the winter, the Metropolitan Opera has released my favorite version of Elektra on DVD.  Hildegard Behrens, Brigitte Fassbänder, Deborah Voigt (before her weight loss: it is interesting to see Behrens put her into an armlock!)  and James Levine conducting.

Wait until you see Behrens climb onto a huge fallen horse statue, shake her fist at the sky, and sing: "Agamemnon hört dich!"

For some reason the Amazon image is not loading: so, from the "Met Opera Shop" we have this:





As the one reviewer (so far) says: "Buy it while you can!"

An excerpt of a review of the performance from "Opera Obsession:"

Here, James Levine leads the Met orchestra in a reading of Strauss's score which was, literally for me, hair-raising. Brigitte Fassbaender's Klytemnaestra and Deborah Voigt's Chrysothemis are both performances which it's great to find preserved. And still, the opera finds its anchor in the Elektra of Hildegard Behrens. Behrens made Elektra--half-mad and yet less deluded than those around her--terrifyingly credible. Ordinarily I would deplore the habit of focusing the camera on one singer while another is singing... but to watch Behrens reacting to Fassbaender is mesmerizing. Fassbaender was given a costume that looked like something out of King Solomon's Mines, but she dripped with venom, and radiated terror. The relationship of the two sisters is also poignantly realized by Behrens and Voigt. Otto Schenk's production doesn't really help, dictating that Chrysothemis do a lot of standing around. Fortunately, Voigt is a fine actress (and, my gosh, that glorious sound!) and she and Behrens portrayed a relationship that is clearly loving, even when the sisters are frustrated by or uncomprehending of the other's actions. It is no small thing, I think, to make Chrysothemis sympathetic when the audience is so caught up in Elektra's fierce indictment of inaction. Voigt did this admirably, and her "Ich kann nicht sitzen" was lush. I think the impression that Behrens was actually standing on Voigt, arced over her like a bow, during her attempt to persuade her to slay Aegisth, must have been an illusion of the staging and filming, but it was an exciting one.

Donald McIntyre is a nobly-sung Orest, who reacts movingly to his sister's plight. James King (!) is Aegisth, past his vocal prime but with undeniable presence, and still-unmistakable timbre. The night belonged to the women, though. And to the orchestra, which thudded and screeched and sobbed and created sounds that crept unpleasantly down my spine. This review is incoherent enough as it is, but let me come back to Behrens, if only to register my awe. She was mesmerizing, her handling of text impeccable and her use of vocal coloring thrilling. So complete was her assumption of the role that it came as a bit of a shock to me to register her visible exhaustion at the curtain calls, when she was deservedly overwhelmed with applause.

http://operaobsession.blogspot.com/2011/07/from-met-archives-elektra.html

Thanks to YouTube, an excerpt:

http://www.youtube.com/v/w8mL9tWk1Qo&feature=related

[mjwal]

It's very moving - she's a powerful actress: I think she's taken female figures in Fassbinder movies as a model here (I'm not surprised you misspelled Fassbaender's name). I do think Elektra is madder than that, but my problem is mainly with her voice - she manages it well, but it has no volume and cutting power to my ears, nor any special expressiveness. When she first appeared at the Frankfurt Opera in the early 70s and sang roles like Kata Kabanova (stunning), she blew me away. Doing the big Wagner roles ruined her voice, I believe.
To get an impression of the degree of derangement Hofmannsthal envisaged, one must listen to the only recording of a speech from the play by the first actress to take the role - who was seen by Richard Strauss, of course: Gertrud Eysoldt. I have never heard anything like it, frightening, beyond anything any singer has ever achieved.

[Cato]

It's very moving - she's a powerful actress: I think she's taken female figures in Fassbinder movies as a model here (I'm not surprised you misspelled Fassbaender's name). I do think Elektra is madder than that, but my problem is mainly with her voice - she manages it well, but it has no volume and cutting power to my ears, nor any special expressiveness. When she first appeared at the Frankfurt Opera in the early 70s and sang roles like Kata Kabanova (stunning), she blew me away. Doing the big Wagner roles ruined her voice, I believe.
To get an impression of the degree of derangement Hofmannsthal envisaged, one must listen to the only recording of a speech from the play by the first actress to take the role - who was seen by Richard Strauss, of course: Gertrud Eysoldt. I have never heard anything like it, frightening, beyond anything any singer has ever achieved.

Aber ich habe den Aufsatz nicht geschrieben: das wurde tatsächlich von einer gewissen Frau "Lucy" geschrieben! 

http://operaobsession.blogspot.com/2011/07/from-met-archives-elektra.html

Wo kann man diese Aufführung von Gertrud Eysoldt finden?

[mjwal]

Lieber Cato, dann war es die betreffende Dame, die die unbewusste Verbindung zwischen Elektra, Klytemnestra und Fassbinder herstellte! Egal - das war vielleicht eine Fehlleistung aber kein Fehler...
Leider ist die Aufnahme von G.Eysoldt natürlich keine Aufführung, sondern eine verrauschte alte Aufzeichnung einer relativ kurzen Textstelle, die ich jetzt aus dem Gedächtnis heraus nicht identifizieren kann, es geht um ihre Rachegelüste. Ich kann diese Aufnahme nicht Online finden - in Frankreich habe ich sie auf CD. Wenn jemand mir erklärt, wie man Sachen bei YouTube uploadet, würde ich das im August machen, wenn ich wieder dort bin.
[brief summary] So that lovely parapraxis (not a mistake!) was committed by a lady - great. I can't find the Eysoldt online, I have the recording on CD in France and would be prepared to upload it to YouTube in August, if somebody tells me how.

[jlaurson]

Aber ich habe den Aufsatz nicht geschrieben: das wurde tatsächlich von einer gewissen Frau "Lucy" geschrieben! 

"Lucy" uses the correct name for the singer; you commit the parapraxis when the name of the director slips in, instead:

Dudes!

I could not believe it!  ...the Metropolitan Opera has released my favorite version of Elektra on DVD.  Hildegard Behrens, Brigitte Fassbinder...

[Cato]

"Lucy" uses the correct name for the singer; you commit the parapraxis when the name of the director slips in, instead:

Okay!  That explains it!

[Cato]

I came across this Elektra curiosity on YouTube thanks to the Zürich Opera: Elektra as a wannabe gang member in da hood!

http://www.youtube.com/v/OBgD1hyQz20&feature=related

The commentary is interesting!

[snyprrr]

There's the 'Music Like 'Le Sacre' or 'Scythian Suite'' Thread,... wouldn't some RS fit there? I've always shied away from him, but I did hear part of 'Salome' that had some pretty cutting music. Is there anything orchestral-only?

[Cato]

There's the 'Music Like 'Le Sacre' or 'Scythian Suite'' Thread,... wouldn't some RS fit there? I've always shied away from him, but I did hear part of 'Salome' that had some pretty cutting music. Is there anything orchestral-only?

Strauss at his most primal is found in Salome and in Elektra, with the latter in certain parts approaching a kind of Schoenbergian Expressionism.

The orchestral tone-poems would seem not to fit the "Like Le Sacre/Scythian Suite" definition.

[Karl Henning]

Aye, the tone-poems, even at their most adventurous, belong solidly within the sonic æsthetic to which Le sacre was so Protean a response.

[jlaurson]

There's the 'Music Like 'Le Sacre' or 'Scythian Suite'' Thread,... wouldn't some RS fit there? I've always shied away from him, but I did hear part of 'Salome' that had some pretty cutting music. Is there anything orchestral-only?

Yes... as the gents have said: Nothing else in R.Strauss fits the mold of Elektra and Salome. Visceral, brutal, hard cutting, modern... you might just have to endure the screaming until you like it. (Should take no more than 4, 5 years -- the payoff is immense and manifold worth it.) The only thing that comes in any way close is Josephslegende.

Josephs Legende is a Sergei Diaghilev commission for his Ballets Russe, based on a libretto concocted by Hugo von Hofmannsthal and the colorful Count Harry Kessler, that jack of all trades, diplomat, and friend of seemingly every important or famous personality of the early 20th century. Strauss accepted the idea – but the religious story didn't sit right with him. More labor than love might have gone into Josephs Legende, even as Strauss made sure that the music displaced any all-too mystical or religious aspects of the story with earthy eroticism. The result is a work that, composed on Elektra and Salome's heels, is less ambitious than either, shorter, less varied, but not much less enticing. If Elektra has curdled blood flowing in its veins, and Salome a sweet poison, Josephs Legende is fueled with Viennese Mélange .

You can hear ideas in it that foreshadow Die Frau ohne Schatten. An unkind, but hardly inaccurate, description of Josephs Legende would be that of a test-run for the latter opera. Set to a story of Hofmannsthal that was much more to the liking of Strauss.

[Karl Henning]

Hm, that there Joseph is a piece I've long known, albeit in name alone....

[mahler10th]

I listened to Le bourgeois gentilhomme last night.
It will be some time before I listen to it again.