From the Met archives: Elektra

I'm hoping to get my hands on the DVDs of recent Elektra productions, but this one is at least recently released: included in the Levine anniversary set from the Met is an Elektra from a 1994 Met telecast. So far the DVD is only available as part of this boxed set, but the packaging, as well as fiscal sense, would seem to indicate that an individual release may be forthcoming. The sound and picture quality is perhaps not up to digital-everything standards, but it's significantly better than that of tapes made from the telecast. (And there's much virtue in that "perhaps"; my television set was rescued from the fate of being thrown away; it still functions perfectly well, most of the time. Nothing about it, however, is high definition.) Otto Schenk's production highlights the size of the Met's stage more than the events and emotions of Strauss's opera, I'm afraid. His palace is washed in a spectrum of colors from sickly yellowish-green to sickly greenish-yellow, which is echoed in the maidservants' costumes (okay.) Everyone else gets robes left over from a Sunday School play, except Elektra, in black. With a few happy exceptions, though (I did find the death dance chilling) it was fairly unexciting. This being Elektra, the music makes up for it.