Elektra, in concert with Valery Gergiev and the LSO, Barbican, January 2010

This powerful Richard Strauss opera, scored for an orchestra of over 110 instruments, has a huge dynamic range and needs singers who can rise above the orchestra. This is where Angela Denoke as Chrysothemis did wonderfully well, and I very much look forward to her singing Salome at the Royal Opera in July. Felicity Palmer as Klytemnestra showed just the right mix of uncertainty and determination in her portrayal, and the voices of the three main protagonists — Elektra, Chrysothemis, and Klytemnestra — were very well contrasted. Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet as Elektra showed herself fierce and anguished, but was clearly out-sung by Angela Denoke. For example, towards the end, after Klytemnestra has been murdered and her lover Aegisthus cries out for help, Elektra sings, “Agamemnon hört dich!” (Agamemnon hears you!), but it was weak, and as he is dragged away, Chrysothemis comes in with “Elektra! Schwester! .. .” The contrast could not have been greater — Ms. Charbonnet was no match for the orchestra, but Ms. Denoke rose effortlessly above it. Matthias Goerne sang Orestes, keeping up well with Ms. Charbonnet in their duet, and Ian Storey sang Aegisthus.

But what really made this a terrific evening was the conducting by Gergiev. He gave us wonderfully melodious quiet passages, yet turned on the power when it was needed. The London Symphony Orchestra respond well to his enigmatic hand gestures, and the orchestral playing was beautifully lyrical. The name Elektra means ‘shining’ — as in the alloy electrum — and Gergiev with the LSO gave us a shining performance.

Peter Grimes, English National Opera, London Coliseum, May 2009

This superb Benjamin Britten opera was given a terrific performance by Edward Gardner, with Stuart Skelton singing a strongly lyrical Grimes, Amanda Roocroft a slightly underpowered Ellen Orford, and Gerald Finley a rather too young looking Captain Balstrode, whom I found somewhat unconvincing. Felicity Palmer was terrific as the busybody Mrs. Sedley, and Michael Colvin was a beautifully voiced Methodist, waving his Bible. But there were too many Bibles being waved in this rather odd production by David Alden, who has gone out of his way to portray the inhabitants of the Borough as being crazier than we normally think of them. He is also a director who likes to put some off-beat sex onto stage, but I think it detracts from the power of this opera. Auntie admittedly runs a pub that doubles as a whore-house, but her ‘nieces’ were made to be almost mentally retarded victims of sexual abuse, dressed in identical school uniforms, playing with their dolls. They even hit them when Grimes hits Ellen and forces his new apprentice into joining him for yet more fishing on Sunday. Auntie herself was played as a weirdly transgendered woman in a long coat, performed as a sideshow by Rebecca de Pont Davies. That was not her fault, because Alden plays this opera as part musical, rather in the style of Kurt Weill, and some of the weirder scenes in Act III had a feel of Berlin decadence from the 1920s. There was even a dancing sailor from the Royal Navy — what was he doing in this fishing village?

The lighting by Adam Silverman was very effective, as were the sets by Paul Steinberg, who also collaborated with Alden on La Calisto at the Royal Opera House earlier this season. Costumes by Brigitte Reiffenstuel dressed most of the chorus in very dark colours, which was effective, but there were some odd extras, like the animal head for Auntie in part of Act III. Again the director was showing the inhabitants of the Borough as weird, while Grimes and Ellen are more normal by comparison, but I think the story needs no outside help. What it does need is to make the high points as effective as possible, and Grimes’s Act I soliloquy, “The Great Bear and the Pleiades . . .” can have a tremendous impact, but here he delivered it from a sitting position in the pub rather than it being a sudden intrusion from without by Grimes. This might be seen as a small quibble, but I’m afraid this production left me cold, never really driving home the tension, except for the death of the apprentice near the end. But the production aside, what really drove Britten’s masterpiece home was Stuart Skelton, Felicity Palmer, the chorus, and the conductor Edward Gardner. They were the stars of the evening for me.