Strauss: Elektra - Aix en Provence [Blu-ray]

The last production ever staged by Patrice Chéreau, this 'Elektra' will remain as the most striking events of recent years in Aix-en-Provence.

This production, with Esa-Pekka Salonen on the podium, the Orchestre de Paris in the pit, an all-star cast and Patrice Chéreau directing, has been hyped so hard that it would be gratifying to be able to enumerate its imperfections. But there are none. Chéreau, Salonen and their cast get everything so appallingly right… Chéreau takes Hofmannsthal’s chilling libretto to the letter, in the most minutely exacting manner, and Salonen does the same with the score, conducting with all the dispassionate clarity of the gore in a Tarantino film. If it were merely gore, it would be bad enough. Far worse, though, both men see every moment of tenderness in text and score in perfect detail.

This production goes on to La Scala, Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Finnish National Opera, the Liceu in Barcelona and the Staatsoper Berlin. It has all the strengths of Chéreau’s legendary staging of Janácek’s 'From the House of the Dead'. Its shelf life will be long, and it will be talked about for even longer. A triumph for Aix."