Elektra

by Richard Strauss
Houston Grand Opera: Houston Symphony
Christoph Eschenbach, conductor
Performers listed below

Do you ever read "true crime novels?" You know, those sometimes lurid books that aren’t fictional novels at all, but rather deal with actual crimes -- cases so compelling that they read like novels. Well, most people won't admit to reading such stuff -- but someone's doing it, because the books sell like hotcakes. The works of author Ann Rule are a good example. She’s written about many different types of crimes -- and nearly all of her books have been bestsellers. The curious thing is, the ones that seem to fascinate us most -- the ones that inspire miniseries and such -- aren’t about stalkers, or serial killers, or deadly romances. They’re about families. Specifically, they deal with monstrously dysfunctional families. Why do you suppose we like those so much?

For example, there was the bestseller about the woman in Missouri who torched her house and burned her children to death, to get back at her husband, who had left her. Or the guy in California who goaded his teenaged sister-in-law and his own, young daughter into murdering his wife -- so he could take up with the teenager. Or the woman from Utah who moved to Manhattan on her wealthy father’s money. When he cut her off, she enlisted her sons to go back to Utah and kill their grandfather, so she could keep living the high life. (Actually, there are two books about that one ...)

Then, there’s the one about the man who murdered his daughter. Then he was axed to death by his wife, and she was in turn killed by their son, who was urged on by their other daughter. No, wait. That last one’s not a bestselling, “true crime novel” -- though it may have been a "bestseller," of sorts. That's Euripides. And Sophocles.

And it's Richard Strauss’s, “Elektra” -- the opera we'll hear this week. Whatever the reasons, it seems like we’ve been drawn to stories like this for an awfully long time -- lurid or not. And it'd be hard to find a more lurid version of this tale than Strauss's. This is an opera in which, near the end, the story's most "innocent" character comes to her dear sister and lovingly describes a scene in which, "dead bodies are everywhere," and, "those still alive are smeared with blood, and smiling ..."

Sound like fun? Well, actually, it's loads of fun! At least it is if you'll admit you enjoy this sort of thing. And naturally, we think you will enjoy it this week on NPR WORLD OF OPERA, when host Steve Curwood presents a production of Elektra from Houston Grand Opera, featuring Hildegard Behrens in the astonishing title role.

Performers:
Hildegard Behrens (Elektra); Leonie Rysanek (Clytemnestra); Roger Roloff (Orestes); John Duykers (Aegisthus); Josephine Barstow (Chrysothemis)

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