In 2002, Antonio Pappano introduced himself as the incoming music director of the Royal Opera with a production of Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos, directed by Christof Loy. Now his final new show in charge is more Strauss, staged once again by Loy. In one respect at least their Elektra makes a fitting farewell for Pappano, as he and the Royal Opera House orchestra realise this gratuitously overwrought score with almost frightening intensity. If its musical excesses sometimes make one long for the economy of Monteverdi as a reminder of what should really matter in music drama, and perhaps to emphasise that great opera does not always have to be so self-indulgent, Pappano ensures that none of the teeming detail with which Strauss underpins his singers is missed, while the the recognition scene, in which Elektra is reunited with her brother Orest, is the opera’s one moment of quiet lyrical beauty.
Almost every other aspect of the evening, though, is disappointing. Loy locates this classical tale in Vienna early in the 20th century; Johannes Leiacker’s unchanging set shows the grey inner courtyard of a palace, in which the below-stairs staff, Elektra among them, busy themselves rather aimlessly, while the dysfunctional family they serve can be glimpsed through the windows above them. But other than that rather literal translation, Loy’s production offers little to illuminate the drama or offer a fresh perspective on it, leaving the music to propel the tragedy to its grim conclusion.
