Under the baton of Maestro Richard Mills, ANAM's young musicians perform alongside Orchestra Victoria to give life to the Victorian Opera production of Richard Strauss's Elektra on 14 September at the Arts Centre Melbourne, Hamer Hall.
ANAM cellist Noah Lawrence (VIC) writes about his first encounter with this masterpiece, and the difference between accompanying vocalists and playing music on his own.
Words by:
Noah Lawrence (cello VIC)
Noah Lawrence
Photo credit: Pia Johnson for ANAM
I still remember the surprise I felt after first throwing on my headphones to listen to Richard Strauss’ Elektra. I was thrust into a frantic and tense scene - jarring chords and flurries of quick, sharp notes pierced the air, while a group of high and agitated voices questioned: ‘where is Elektra?’ Strauss had caught me off-guard. He didn’t waste a single moment by prefacing the action - choosing instead to launch right into the middle of this tragic narrative. It was in these first few minutes that I grasped the challenge my colleagues and I faced when preparing this work.
Elektra captures Strauss at his most daring. A kind of frenzy seems to permeate this piece right down to the last second, brought about by his boundary-pushing work with the orchestra and vocalists. Dense, complicated musical structures and a bold virtuosity abound in the orchestral writing - and reach a peak that Strauss himself would never outdo. Perhaps even he couldn’t handle this kind of intensity for too long.
So, I am currently at work in the practice room learning these difficult runs of notes and weird-sounding harmonies that often don’t make much sense unless I’m in the same room as the 2nd basset horn, or the contrabass trombone, or the Wagner tubas for that matter. Listening to recordings has also really started to reveal the emotional intricacy of this masterpiece, and why Strauss’ modern, in-your-face approach to an ancient work of tragedy fits it so well. The tornado of grief, resentment and revenge contained in this story - Elektra’s deranged obsession with murdering her mother - is simply too much to bear. It is almost as if Strauss had to write so unconventionally and with such intensity for the orchestra. It certainly does the narrative justice.
Photo by: Pia Johnson
It is easy as a cellist to fixate on what is happening below the stage, but Elektra is teaching me to love the relationship between what happens both above and below. It’s a kind of symbiosis - the lack of visual connection means you have to be listening intently all the time, and beyond this, be ready to musically bend and flex at a moment’s notice. The delivery of a certain line by a vocalist can drastically change how the orchestra below might play the next section. When playing on my own I am used to having to invent a whole drama with only my cello, but this combination of disciplines - the music, the singing, the libretto - is revealing to me a new kind of artistic power.
I am so excited to begin rehearsals for Strauss’ Elektra alongside the Victorian Opera, and to start hearing this music all around me, in all its complex glory. I sincerely hope that, when our performance comes around, you can enjoy the horrific thrill-ride that this opera is - I promise it’s a journey you won’t forget.
Catch Noah with his fellow musicians perform in Elektra. Click here for tickets.