MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Strauss, (R.): Elektra (complete opera recorded in 1981)

This release contains a 1981 film of the Vienna State Opera's performance of Richard Strauss's 1909 opera, Elektra. Astrid Varnay plays the eponymous title character, the daughter of Clytemnestra (Leonie Rysanek). When Clytemnestramurders her husband Agamemnon (Rolf Boysen), with the conspiration of her lover, Aegistheus (Hans Beirer), and Elektra learns of it, hell hath no fury. For this production, the late Karl Bohm - Strauss's protégé - conducts, while Gotz Friedrich directs the stage production itself, dramatically evoking and emphasizing the expressionist set design inherent in Strauss's original conception. (Rovi)