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.
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Don't listen to the negative reviews
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.