There is a long-standing tradition of creating versions of operas from the standard repertoire for orchestral forces smaller than the original. Such efforts range from works originally scored for modest forces (Mozart, Rossini, the baroque) to larger fare, such as Carmen and la Bohème. I myself am the author of reduced-force editions of Le Nozze di Figaro, Cosi fan Tutte, and Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann.
These editions play to the strengths of opera companies lacking the means, the space, or both to produce the full orchestra version of a work. The productions typically utilize sparer sets and costumes, often in nontraditional, intimate performance spaces, spotlighting the kinetic and acting abilities of their performers and elevating the dramatic importance of the performance to the level usually reserved for the music.
The recent proliferation of such companies has seen a concomitant increase in interest for access to parts of the repertoire previously considered out of their reach. An attempt was even made at Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen with a version of Das Rheingold for eighteen instruments (a project that it would have been interesting to see continued). Yet there remains a part of the canon considered not only so large-scale but technically demanding as to remain the province of only the larger opera houses, amongst which many would no doubt classify most of the operas of Richard Strauss.
So it was no small surprise to me when I was recently approached by one such opera company in New York City about creating a version for severely reduced orchestra - thirty players or less - of Richard Strauss's titanic one act 1909 opera Elektra, based on Hugo von Hofmannsthal's play.
If you know Elektra, you are probably having exactly the same reaction that I did: insanity. Cant be done, and probably shouldn't be attempted. For many of its partisans, Elektra is all about its colossal proportions: situations so epic and emotions so heightened that they can only be depicted by extremes of vocal writing and an enormous orchestra. Strauss calls for a minimum of 110 instrumentalists instructed to play much of the time at high volume and and at a level of technical demand that to this day makes the most talented instrumentalist quail. (In comparison, a full strength performance of Mozart’s Figaro would use approximately 40 players, Carmen 55, Aida 60, Boheme 63, not counting offstage instruments.)
The sheer size of Elektra’s orchestra has frequently necessitated the casting of the principal roles with performers whose main responsibility is simply to make themselves heard above it. Such singers are typically possessed of a physical makeup that mitigates against sustained or heightened physical motion. The result is that concert performances of the opera have become almost as numerous as stagings, and that stagings have all but devolved into concert performances as the singers able to tackle the score’s demands limit their diegetic involvement and therefore erode the opera’s drama.
But Elektra is first and foremost a drama: arguably one of the most visceral, dynamic dramas ever conceived for the operatic stage. For all the virtuosic brilliance of the instrumental writing and the heroic vocal demands, the manic, kinetic fervor of Strauss' score cries out for physical reflection by the singers. The composer himself always placed prime importance on the dramatic demands of this role, as witnessed by his stressing to conductor Felix Mottl in preparation for the Munich premiere of the opera that the title role “requires a tragic actress of the first rank.” Note that his emphasis isn’t on the loudest voice possible, or a singer with a penetrating high C (more on that in a later post), but on the need for an actress.
So is the the full orchestra version then the only way to perform Elektra? In addition to the extreme dramatic situations and Strauss’s interpretation of them via arguably his most complex score, is a huge battalion of instrumentalists mandatory to effectively convey this gruesome yet exhilarating piece?
It’s to explore these questions that I was persuaded to tackle this just slightly daunting project. Why not create an alternative version for smaller orchestral forces that would permit this incomparable work to be performed not only by organizations able to afford the behemoth orchestra, but just as importantly by stage performers of physical makeup and propensity to do more than stand in place and compete with the pit? To physically match the dynamic volatility so rife in the music?
This blog will follow my progress on the score, slated to have its premiere in the summer of 2016 in New York City, with contemplations, questions, observations, challenges, frustrations and achievements, all open for comment.
