Salome/Elektra: English National Opera Guide 37

by Richard Strauss, Nicholas John (Editor)

English National Opera Guides are ideal companions to the opera. They provide stimulating introductory articles together with the complete text of each opera in English and the original. Richard Strauss, already known for his wonderful orchestral tone-poems, projected his genius at the turn of the twentieth century to opera, and this Guide contains the texts and introductions to his first two masterpieces in what was, for him, a new genre. Despite obvious similarities—both operas consist of one Act, centred upon one female title role—the articles included here reveal that the operas are really quite different in subject and treatment. Salome, based on Oscar Wilde's notorious play, has a kaleidoscopic range of orchestral colour and a lurid climax in "The Dance of the Seven Veils"—an episode which has challenged generations of sopranos to dance as well as sing. Elektra was derived from the tragedies of the Ancient Greeks by the Austrian poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and is the first of his many collaborations with Strauss. It is also a study in neurosis, ripe for Jungian comparative analysis.

Genres: Music

148 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Richard Georg Strauss was a German composer and conductor best known for his tone poems and operas. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wagner and Franz Liszt. Along with Gustav Mahler, he represents the late flowering of German Romanticism, in which pioneering subtleties of orchestration are combined with an advanced harmonic style.

Reviews

[Illiterate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strauss’ music suits the impassioned/hysterical heroines.

[Gregory Knapp · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent series of guides