Metropolitan Opera Archives

"Elektra" can be riveting in its orchestral intensity and malignant atmosphere, And last Friday received an at times exciting performance. Based on Sophocles’ play, the opera concentrates on Elektra’s ferocious revenge of Agamemnon’s murder. The part is a strenuous one (the first New York Elektra fainted after the premiere), calling for a soprano with a steel throat and steady nerves. Danica Mastilovic, a sturdy Yugoslav, got through it all without taking — so it seemed — a deep breath and with a minimum of sagging phrases. As her sister Chrysothemis, Eva Marton proved equally dauntless, soaring through her music with impressive ease.

The others in the cast were less impressive. As the gross crazed Klytaemnestra, for example, Mignon Dunn's singing was really too beautiful to convey the queen's guilt and fear (though this may be a matter of taste). Norman Bailey presented a surprisingly dreary Orest and Ragnar Ulflung, usually a fine singer, missed turning Aegisth's brief appearance into a vignette of terror and decadence. Erich Leinsdorf and the Orchestra amply provided the emotionally pitched moods and soaring climaxes that disturb the house of Atreus.

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