ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
Electra is obsessed with the idea of avenging her father’s murder. Agamemnon is the center and demon of her idée fixe. Electra lives exclusively in the past; as a figure, she is only existent in combination with this idea. Through this absolute fixation upon the idea, the person becomes a marionette – a cruel act of self-abandonment and loss of identity.
The opera takes place in a space occupied primarily by Electra, a command center of her obsession. She has almost walled herself up in the fortress of her thoughts, a shell that is a refuge and a trap at the same time. The piece is about the visualization of inner states, about existential emergencies and forced situations.
In the end, what remains is self-deception and self-destruction, culminating in a dance of death. The drama ends with the same basic problems as it began. Only the roles have been changed. There is no way out of the cycle of crime. The curse remains. The Erinyes are just outside the door.
Nikolaus Lehnhoff