Elektra

Grief turns into a violent quest for revenge. Christof Loy’s nuanced contemporary production returns for its first revival since its 2024 premiere, with Ausrine Stundyte in the murderous title role. Conductor Semyon Bychkov draws out the fierce drama of Strauss’s menacingly modern music.

The story of Elektra

Vengeance will be hers.

King Agamemnon has been murdered by his wife Klytämnestra and her lover, Ägisth. To protect her brother Orest, Klytämnestra’s daughter, Elektra, sends him away, now living as an outcast in her mother’s home. Though her sister Chrysothemis, desperate to escape the palace, urges caution, Elektra cannot rest until she has avenged her father.

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Elektra was still a child when she witnessed the treacherous slaughter of her father, King Agamemnon, while he slept. It was her mother Klytämnestra and her mother’s lover Ägisth who committed the murder.

Elektra’s younger brother Orest was sent out of the country, as their mother feared that he would grow up to avenge what she had done. In the meantime, Klytämnestra has humiliated her daughter Elektra, who openly flaunts her hatred for her, by making her a maidservant. While Elektra’s sister Chrysothemis is able to live a privileged life at court, her mother nevertheless keeps her away from men, fearing that she too could give birth to a potential avenger. Elektra herself has now spent countless years waiting for Orest to return and avenge their father’s death.

The maids have nothing but contempt for the princess Elektra, who has been reduced to being a servant. When one of the maids speaks up for Elektra, she is immediately set upon.

In her solitude Elektra turns to her murdered father, addressing him, and yearning for him to take her in his arms. As if repeating a ritual, she promises him that the day of vengeance will come, and dreams of a blood bath in honour of Agamemnon.

Her sister Chrysothemis begs her to give up this delusion and abandon the idea of vengeance. Only then will they both be able to lead normal lives, and Chrysothemis can devote herself to love and a husband, and become a mother. Elektra despises her sister for this normative fantasy.

Klytämnestra demands to speak to Elektra: she has had a sleepless night and feels that only by talking to her daughter can she find peace of mind. She believes in rites, and in the need for a sacrificial victim to soothe her conscience. Elektra enjoys hearing how her mother agonises night after night, unable to sleep. Eventually Elektra explains to her that she, Klytämnestra, is the sacrificial victim that must be slaughtered, and gloatingly describes every detail of her mother’s imminent murder.

Just as Elektra is exulting, Klytämnestra receives news that Orest has been killed in a horrible accident. A shocked Chrysothemis explains to her sister that he was dragged to death by his own horses. But Elektra allows herself no time to grieve. She tries to persuade – or rather, force – Chrysothemis to murder her own mother and Ägisth that very night. Horrified, Chrysothemis, who desires love, not hatred, runs off.

As Elektra sets about digging up the axe her father was murdered with in order to exact vengeance, she suddenly finds herself facing an unknown man. The two eventually recognise one another: he is her brother Orest, who has had word of his death falsely circulated to ease his path to Klytämnestra. Now he is here, with a Companion, to finally achieve the vengeance that Elektra has so long been waiting for. Orest and his Companion are let into the house and shortly afterwards the panic-stricken screams of the dying Klytämnestra can be heard.

Ägisth, who now spends his evenings away from his wife, then returns home, and Elektra herself leads him to the front door. The same murderous scenario is enacted and Ägisth is heard screaming as he is promptly executed by Orest. Elektra’s mission has been fulfilled.

– Christof Loy