After watching “Otello” at the Metropolitan Opera, I was not expecting much. I disliked Otello for the reason that I did not like the translation as it seemed like old english. Many people like to just watch the performance and not pay attention to what they are saying but it is imperative to me that I understand exactly what they were saying (it’s an OCD thing). So when I sat down at my seat in H1 after embarrassingly calling my professor by his first name, I expected something similar to the Met’s Otello. I was disappointed because I assumed there would be no performance because I did not see anywhere for there to be performers. But to my surprise, there were singers that just maneuvered around the orchestra. I did not know much about Elektra as much as I did about Otello, but for some reason I understood the performance much better. Perhaps this is because the translation was easier to understand.
A few women entered that were playing the maids in the household in which Elektra lived in while three of them were complaining about her behavior. But there was one who glorified Elektra and she seemed to have the most powerful voice of all of them. This might have been intentional to emphasize the heroine qualities in Elektra. Elektra swept back and forth in his grand red dress near them, listening to the conversation, unbeknownst to them. They exited in a manner in which they should have noticed Elektra but the directors were probably not concerned with the technicalities. Elektra came and started singing to herself about how she wished for the vengeance of her father’s death.
Elektra’s sister, Chrysothernis, later appeared and sang about how she wants the “destiny” of a woman which is to find a husband and have children. I felt like this was the most powerful scene of the performance as I felt her pain and yearning to get out of the place where she was held prisoner. She made it clear that she could pursue her dreams if Elektra would have behaved properly. This was when I started to really dislike Elektra. Because of her grudge, she was inhibiting her sister from living her dreams. Of course, her anger against her mother and her lover were justified for killing her father, but I couldn’t get over her selfishness. She dismissed her sister’s pleas and even cursed her when she refused to help kill her mother. Elektra’s character was really off-putting in the sense that she was supposed to be the protagonist and she as so filled with hate.
When Klytaemnestra appeared and sang about how she could’t sleep at night and was being offended by nightmares, I actually felt bad for her. I understand she killed her husband but for some reason I pitied her. When Elektra started acting kind to her mother, it was obviously an act but I was hoping it wasn’t. She told her mother her nightmares would stop when she was murdered, so there was no repairing of the relationship. I noticed that Klytaemnestra didn’t sing as much as the other actors and it sounded like her voice even broke at one point (but I do not blame her for this if it did happen).
I saw that Elektra was drinking water during the performance and I later learned from the pamphlet that they gave out that it was impossible not to drink. To take on the role of Elektra is frightening: you must be on stage for two hours with no break, while singing opera. So drinking water was completely necessary. I kept on hoping she would leave the stage so she would get a little break to recharge.
I noticed in the clip that was shown to us during class that Elektra’s sister was horrifying in appearance, which was not the case in the opera. My professor later explained to me that the perception of Elektra’s sister by the director of the performance determined the way she would look based on if she was considered a fool or a poor soul. In this performance, she was considered a poor soul who just wanted more out of life than being imprisoned.
Some things I did not understand were the repercussions of Elektra’s brother not using the axe, Elektra’s costume of a beautiful dress if she was the “sport of the maids” (I would expect her to wear rags), Elektra’s death at the end. Also, Elektra’s dancing seemed very strange. It did not seem graceful, probably because she was so filled with bitterness. I would have enjoyed the performance much more if there was intermission because I had to go to the bathroom 15 minutes in. But than that, I was surprised I liked it, based on my distaste for Otello. I would definitely recommend it to others. And just like after Otello, I was singing opera (not so quietly) at the train station to my classmates’s dismay.
