Richard Strauss Elektra (1980)

Its hard to imagine confirmed Straussians not wanting this starry Metropolitan Opera performance of Elektra Strauss and his librettist Hugo von Hofmannstahl transformed Sophocles take on Homers tale into a harrowing opera noir Elektra lives for one reason to kill her mother Klytämnestra and her stepfather Aegisth the murderers of her father Agamemnon In contrast to Elektras vengeful obsession her sister Chrysothemis desires to get on with life When their longmissing brother Orestes returns to do the deed Elektra celebrates with a dance of death and her sole purpose in life fulfilled dies Strauss joined the hermetic plot to music of the utmost opulence violent and yearning by turns evoking the cardinal principles of Greek tragedy pity and terror