With the cuts traditionally imposed on Elektra, one is faced with the conflicts of respecting Strauss’ architectonic design, the problems that imposes on the opera’s dramatic pacing, and the extraordinary demands on the performer of the title role.
In the descriptions below, the numerical designations indicate rehearsal number / measure number after the said rehearsal number.
- 225/1 - 228/1: A small section towards the end of Klytamnestra’s confrontation with Elektra, as the queen demands that her daughter identity of the sacrifice that will banish her nightmares. This cut of all of 16 measures has always perplexed me: its brevity hardly seems to make it worthwhile. Here and there you will read that it inhibits the pace building to the immediately following outburst from Elektra describing her mother’s death.
I feel the opposite. At the very least, there is a dramatic motivational reinforcement to this section that I am always sorry to see omitted.
Hoffmannsthal’s obfuscation from the original Greek plays of the argument for Klytamnestra’s murder of her husband, and Strauss’s elimination of much of what little Hoffmannsthal grants her, reduces Klytemnestra in the opera to a cartoonish caricature of unexplained evil that makes for a simplistic and unsophisticated experience.
On the rare occasions that this passage is retained it enhances Klytamnestra’s complexity and impetus. Having vacillated between various emotional states to lure Elektra in to revealing the remedy to her nightmares, the queen now sheds any pretense of civility, making clear that she will stop at nothing to discover what must be sacrificed to banish the nightmares that plague her:
This is less a disposable nicety than an important highlighting of the brutal state to which the Queen has devolved. Also the disjuncture of this largely 5/4 section provides a seething contrast to the otherwise steady waltz tempo, and increases its impact when it returns at 228. I find it telling that conductors are increasingly restoring this section, and am retaining it in my edition.
2. 240/1 - 255/1: Elektra’s tirade to her mother describing the terrifying hunt Orestes will undertake on his return home, ending in the queen’s death.
Interestingly, this entire section occurs in Hofmannshtal’s play during Elektra’s first scene with Chrysothemis, with Elektra describing to her sister the terrifying hunt that will end with their mother’s murder at their brother’s hands. Dramatically it makes complete sense to relocate this speech and direct it in first person towards Klytamnestra.
Still, nine pages of full score and 94 bars of music comprise this cut. By the time of the savage C minor explosion that starts the scene, Strauss has worked the music up to a high level of tension that this textual extension can’t sustain. Here is a prime example of Strauss defeating his dramatic instincts for his musical ambitions. And across the broader scope of the title role, this extended passage places demands on the vocal part - and we’re not even at the halfway mark of the opera yet - that make this cut worth retaining.
For another appetite whetter, as well as fodder for my argument in point 1 above, here’s my reduction of the section in question:
