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L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O
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February 2 - 22, 2019
Certain works are impossible to present onstage unless the right protagonist
is on hand. One of those operas is Richard Strauss’s
Elektra
, which presents
dramatic sopranos with their most awe-inspiring challenge. e title role is a
veritable Matterhorn, replete with stupendous heights and depths of emotion
requiring the ultimate in vocal, musical, and dramatic excellence.
is isn’t a one-woman opera. Remarkable artistry is required of the
artists portraying the other principals in this drama: warm, womanly, desperate
Chrysothemis, terrified and terrifying Klytämnestra, mysterious Orest, and
arrogant Aegisth. Each role offers extraordinary opportunities to its interpreter,
including a confrontation with the heroine that can produce some of the most
vivid moments of any
Elektra
performance.
A few seasons ago Swedish soprano Nina Stemme, already a celebrated
Brünnhilde and Isolde, made her eagerly awaited role debut as Elektra. At the
Metropolitan Opera and the major houses of Vienna, Berlin, and Munich,
ecstatic praise from press and public alike has confirmed Nina’s stature as
a truly exceptional exponent of this role. She brings to it a uniquely warm,
voluminous, deeply expressive voice, to which she adds incomparable musicality
and extraordinary gifts as an actress. e power of her emotional communication
will most certainly ensure an experience in the opera house that our audiences
will long remember.
It’s exciting to welcome back to Lyric a recent Met Chrysothemis, the marvelous South African soprano Elza van den
Heever, who dazzled Lyric earlier in her career as the sorceress Armida in Handel’s
Rinaldo
; and the riveting American
mezzo-soprano Michaela Martens, whose Klytämnestra was recently a great success at San Francisco Opera. Our two debuting
male principals are the grand-voiced Scottish bass-baritone Iain Paterson (Orest) and one of America’s most gifted singing actors,
tenor Robert Brubaker (Aegisth).
Elektra
is also a magnificent showpiece for a great orchestra. Strauss was one of the most brilliantly skilled orchestrators of his
time – indeed, of any time. With this opera he created a panoply of astonishing colors, moving effortlessly from passages of the
most exquisite intimacy to outbursts boasting unparalleled intensity. is score deserves a great Straussian on the podium, which
we have in Donald Runnicles, in his Lyric debut. For years Donald has been one of my favorite conductors. He conducts an
enormously varied repertoire, but at its heart is German romantic music. He and Nina Stemme have a longstanding professional
association, and I know how excited they are to be working together at Lyric.
Sir David McVicar’s
Elektra
production delivers a punch to the solar plexus like no other
Elektra
I’ve seen. e world that
set and costume designer John Macfarlane and lighting designer Jennifer Tipton have created with David is extraordinarily
oppressive, threatening, and terrifying, in which the tragedy of the central characters comes devastatingly to life.
is will be an
Elektra
of truly epic proportions. We hope you’ll relish the beauty, the horror, the savagery – all the qualities
that make this work one of the summits of opera.
Anthony Freud
General Director, President & CEO
e Women’s Board Endowed Chair
From the General Director
STEVE LEONARD