Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Dance Company: Elektra -
Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, 24 February -
Elektra is an early twentieth century German opera composed by Richard Strauss with a libretto by Hugo Von Hofmannsthal. Stylistically, it is modernist – exploring emotion through vast orchestration, dissonant harmonies and abandoning tonality to emphasise drama and sentiment. It focuses tightly on the tormented inner world of Elektra, who does not leave the stage for the full two hours. Christine Goerke, in the title role, has the power, drama and sound to live up to the magnitude of this role … and then some.
Elektra is enormous in scale, calling for more than a hundred musicians. In this production, Sydney Symphony Orchestra chief conductor and artistic director David Robertson has made the music central to the experience by reconfiguring the Concert Hall stalls to position the orchestra in the middle of what feels like a live volcano of sound and emotion. For the stylishly black-gowned singers, just a slender performance platform behind the orchestra, and behind that another raised stage for the eight dancers of the Sydney Dance Company. The audience arcs around this performance crater, but must dart their eyes high above it all to read the surtitles.
A chorus of dancers is another Robertson innovation. At the turn of the century Hofmannsthal wrote of finding language inadequate to express his total view of the world. Enter Strauss and music’s sounds, tones and colours to fill in the gaps. So why not yet another interpretative layer – the physical body in movement. Enter Stephanie Lake and the Sydney Dance Company.
To me, the addition of yet another emphatic layer, rather than heighten and enlighten, detracts. This is not to take away from Stephanie Lake’s skill as a choreographer, more a flaw in the overall vision. The choreography could exist independently in its own right, as there is no interplay between dancers and singers until the very last moment. Indeed, it is almost independent of the score itself. Like many contemporary dance creations, it is evident the movement was not so much created for the music as in abstraction, and then placed amongst, within and in juxtaposition to it. Although it is fairly standard contemporary movement vernacular, the choreography is interesting in its own right. Far too interesting, to be placed behind the force of the singers and sound already demanding our attention. Neither the lighting, which was generally too all-canvassing, nor the eye-catching blue of the costumes helped.
Lake’s dancers don’t represent the characters, but embody the emotion. If it were film, the director might cut in a loaded shot of an ominous gnarly tree trunk. And we’d cut back to the action. Here, however, the dancers are compelled to enter and exit the stage woodenly, in full view, as if we were having to watch the shot being established and taken apart, destroying the magic completely.
Would I have appreciated Elektra more without the dance? Perhaps it would have allowed me to devote my attention fully to the score, the singers and the libretto; recognise the leitmotifs and themes and so, be more engrossed. As it happened, I felt there were too many choices and too little integration, so was kept at arm’s length, wishing all the histrionics would simply come to an end.
- Emma Sandall