Lyric Opera 2018-2019 Issue 8 Elektra

focus on who I am for that performance. I want things to be as normal as possible. I only want my family around. Because it’s such a long day before Elektra starts. Once, the day of an Elektra performance in New York, I wanted to hide a bit, and so I went to an exhibition, but I was recognized. And for Elektra , I really want to stay in my bubble before I go onstage that night.” It’s not an easy role to shake. Stemme says that “all the emotions of the opera, particularly the emotional climaxes, stay with me for a long time after each performance. e character of Elektra may be gone, but not the emotions of hers that I have sung. I try to just keep on and not do too much about it – otherwise, I don’t think my own family would be very happy! ere are times when I have to tell myself, ‘Stop acting like Elektra! And don’t go for that axe!’” For Lyric’s debuting conductor, Donald Runnicles, a night spent with Elektra is, if anything, invigorating. “I don’t ever feel exhaustion after conducting Elektra ,” he says. “I feel elation. Certainly it’s a complex work to conduct and to keep together. But it doesn’t lead to exhaustion. If it did, that would mean there was something I hadn’t done right. Certainly, there is some emotional exhaustion, due to the roller-coaster you’ve just been on for 100 minutes. But it’s really not until a couple of hours later, or even the next morning, that I realize – ‘Hmmm…I conducted Elektra last night.’ It’s the same way with the Ring . At the end of any of the Ring operas, yes, I’m emotionally quite tired. But I could probably physically conduct another act!” Runnicles and Stemme are close friends and colleagues, and they have done numerous performances of Elektra in Berlin together. Because of Strauss’s heavy orchestration, it’s essential for a conductor – and his orchestra – to be alert to the demands this opera makes on singers. “I think it’s primarily a matter of sensitizing the orchestra to the fact that there are people singing,” explains Runnicles. “You want them to be able to listen to the singers, to hear them from the pit. If it’s played really meticulously, and if the orchestra takes the dynamics seriously, there are very few places where you’ll have to reduce the dynamics. But that’s a conductor’s job – to make it very clear to the players that what they have in front of them is what they should be playing, and that they should not gravitate to the strongest dynamic. If the dynamics are played exactly as printed, there should be no huge balance problems with the sound between the pit and the stage. Of course, every opera house has a different acoustic, and this will be my first time at Lyric – so I plan to get out of the pit at some point during rehearsals and into the house to see how the balance is being maintained. e work is phenomenally orchestrated and phenomenally composed, and that’s what rehearsals are for – context, context, context.” A role like Elektra demands such vocal weight and interpretive authority that a dramatic soprano must grow into it. It cannot be taken on in the early stages of a career. “I had heard that Elektra was so dramatic,” says Stemme, “and so difficult, that I waited as long as I could to sing it. Somehow my schedule took care of that by itself, once I had said yes to Isolde and Brünnhilde. And I tried to sing the Italian repertoire as long as possible. You know, Verdi doesn’t make it as easy to know the layers and emotions of his characters as a playwright like Hoffmannsthal does. It’s all there in the text. And Strauss responds to this text in the most fantastic way. Now I’m starting the Dyer’s Wife [in Die Frau ohne Schatten ]. I don’t know if she’s exploding or im ploding her emotions, but she can’t express them. Elektra is perfectly able to express them, but the Dyer’s Wife needs an entire opera to learn how to express herself!” It’s said that Strauss’s own advice to Elektra conductors was that it should be conducted like “fairy-tale music.” Realistically, that can only be applied to one or two sections of the score, but it gives us an idea of how a conductor can harness his enormous orchestra and allow the voices to come through. “I think what he was getting at,” says Runnicles, “is that there are moments of heavy articulation, but there are also moments that should be played lightly. I think he’s also implying that the orchestra players need to be aware of their specific role in the melodic line, and the need to keep it in a Mendelssohnian vein. In movie footage of Strauss conducting his music – and he was a master conductor – you can see that O P E R A N O T E S | L Y R I C O P E R A O F C H I C A G O February 2 - 22, 2019 | 31 WIENER STAATSOPER/MICHAEL POEHN BETTINA STOESS Nina Stemme in Elektra at the Vienna State Opera. Donald Runnicles in rehearsal at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.