Elektra, Royal Opera House review ★★★★★

Revenge is a dish best served cold, the chilling novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses has taught us. And there is enough barbarous and bloody rage in the world to suggest that its author Laclos was right. Ideally revenge should go off the boil, and simmer into more positive redress for wrongs endured.

At the Royal Opera House, Richard Strauss's 'revenge opera' Elektra has had nearly four years in cold storage, having been scheduled for Covid-hit 2020. But in Christof Loy's new production, now finally reaching the stage, the vengeful daughter of a murdered father is still baying for the blood of her murderous mother and that of the mother's lover. She hasn't buried the hatchet: she's found, buried and dug up the lethal axe, and intends to use it.

Based on Greek drama, Elektra is set here in the mid-20th century, where a crowd has gathered in a palace reminiscent of grand Viennese mansions. Maids bustle to and fro and take time out to gossip in the scuzzy, unseen rear of a prestigious address. Among them is Elektra herself, daughter of the house, condemned to service by her mother Klytämnestra. Elektra reveals her plan for revenge to her sister Chrysothemis, whose idea of a future is marriage and a baby, not a lifetime with blood on her hands.

Karita Mattila is a murderous queen in Elektra. Photo: Tristram Kenton

Elektra is Sir Antonio Pappano's final new production as music director of the Royal Opera before taking up the chief conductor post vacated by Sir Simon Rattle with the London Symphony Orchestra, resident at the Barbican. He is not going far away, in short, and is sure to guest conduct in future at Covent Garden. And a good job too, because under him the colossal and communicative orchestra required by Strauss (100-plus, the percussion section spilling up into the side boxes) produces dazzling and expressive effects, as brilliant as the gold leaf lavishly applied by artists and architects in 1900s Vienna. This gorgeous colour is not always reflected on stage.

At 60, Swedish soprano Nina Stemme is only three years younger in real life than her stage mother, sung imperiously and with arch glamour by Finnish soprano Karita Mattila. The long wait for revenge has not been entirely kind to her Elektra, Stemme singing valiantly through a frog in the throat, and undertaking this very physical role with an injured wrist. Although top notes that should slice bread are faltering, I rather like the oak-aged lower register. Her deranged dance of death is jig-like.

The most exciting singing on first night came from Sara Jakubiak as Elektra's appalled younger sister Chrysothemis. Jakubiak makes her Royal Opera debut in a Mid-Century Barbie ballgown, and to a rapturous reception. With a striking stage presence, nimble vocal line and optimistic glow, she is one to watch, and is sure to be back. Polish bass-baritone Łucasz Goliński as the sisters' brother Orest, returned from the dead, and bass Michael Mofidian as his companion bring male oomph.

Nina Stemme as Elektra pleads with sister Chrysosthemis, the excellent Sara Jakubiak. Photo: Tristram Kenton

Loy's direction makes little of other characters. The chattering staff do not really gel in the way that colleagues sharing adversities can, and we know tantalisingly little of what's going on in designer Johannes Leiacker's big house. What we do know, as we learn time and time again, is that bloody revenge always fails.

Elektra is a power-packed one-act opera, sung straight through in under two hours. The theme is challenging and the music can be demanding of listeners as well as ravishing in its instrumentation. It's not a first date, either with opera or with that promising new person. But it's an important landmark in musical history that, like many breakthroughs, shocked at the time. Productions don't come along like buses. And with two big names who may not do this for ever and ever, it's a must for collectors.

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Elektra is sung in German with English surtitles by Yehuda Shapiro. Further performances are on 15, 18, 23, 26 and 30 Jan.Click here for booking