Family Reunions

It seems serendipitous that the timing of my next teaser, the reunion between Elektra and Orest, should fall on the U.S.'s Thanksgiving, a holiday traditionally marked by family gatherings. (In a rare but admirable bit of ironic humor, the Metropolitan Opera scheduled a showing of their 2016 video capture of the opera for Thanksgiving night, starring Nina Stemme and Waltraude Meier in top form.)

This teaser shows a prime example of Strauss's desire in his operas to retain all the minute, febrile orchestral detail of his tone poems at the risk of their being lost behind the listener's inevitable focus on the voices. A gossamer web of arpeggiated themes, gleamed by glockenspiel, twinkling harp and spiraling solo violins, form a tendriling harmonic background against which the vocal line can wander. This is one of several sections of the opera where I suspect the reduced forces will enhance the audibility of this orchestral detail.

Oh, I'm sorry: were you expecting the big recognition bang? Or perhaps Elektra's aria? 

You'll have to wait for live performance for that.