Due to a scheduling conflict we had to change our opera tickets to Halloween. It was great fun to see costumes mixed in with the regular opera goers. I wore my tiara and a sparkly dress. We saw some life guards in very tight spandex and a fabulous group wearing Greek costumes.We joined the Bravo Club (major discounts and fun events for those of you under 40) and we hit their event before the show. Free wine is always a plus in my opinion! And we even had a pleasant conversation with a guy who just got back from Nepal.
The show itself is very short, and there is no intermission. But it is a very powerful work. What I noticed the most is that while a Broadway show intertwines the score with the lyrics, the singers in Electra were often times singing in direct contrast to the orchestra.
Electra is a Greek tragedy with a story that starts before this oprea. Helen of Troy has been abducted and the Spartan's need to be big bad asses and go get her back. It's a pride thing. But someone has offended the God's, so the King sends for his daughter (telling her and his wife that he's making her a high priestess). Lie! Instead he scarifies her so the winds will change and he and his army can leave the harbor. Needless to say this makes his wife very unhappy. So when he comes back from war (and that tricky Trojan horse trick) his wife and her lover kill him in the bath tub.
According to Greek law a son must avenge the killing of his father so the young prince is spirited away before he can be killed first. This leave Electra and her sister living at the palace and so this opera begins.
Electra is obsessed with revenge for her father's death (she even keeps the sword he was killed with so that she has it ready when her brother returns) while her sister just wants to live a normal life. But their mother has paid a price for her treachery, she has been unable to sleep since she murdered her husband and she lives in fear of the return of her son. Since this is a tragedy, and a Greek one at that, I'm sure it comes at no surprise that things don't end well.
At the end the prince comes home, the mother and lover are killed, and Electra has nothing to live for so she dies. But what was the most moving moment of the opera was when Electra's sister (the one who just wanted to be normal, have babies and be like other girls) is holding the body of her dead sister, and the newly returned brother slowly distances himself from her and locks her out of the palace!!!!!
Those Greeks sure knew their drama.
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