Elektra - Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London

Annie and I attended our first ever opera on Saturday night at the Royal Opera House. Annie has been asking to go to the opera for quite some time and to keep with the Austrian/German theme of her birthday I had bought tickets for Richard Strauss' opera Elektra. I have always been hesitant to go to the opera for fear that it might be boring but I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised and completely entertained...oh yeah, Annie loved it too!

Revenge was the clear theme of Elektra which is based on a Greek tragedy. The royal family has been torn to pieces as the Queen, Klytaemnestra, has murdered her husband, King Agamemnon, with the help of her lover, Aegisth. The daughter of the King, Elektra, played by Susan Burke, is intent to see the death of her mother. Elektra tries to convince her sister, Chrysothemis, to help in the murder but their brother, Orest, returns from lands afar and performs the murder of his mother and basically the entire household. Elektra is so happy at the death of her mother that she dances herself to death at the end. There was plenty of drama in the one act play (1 hour, 45 minutes) and the singers did an excellent job.

The opera was sung in German but an LCD screen hung from the ceiling providing us non-German speakers with English subtitles. People always say that you can usually understand operas without knowing what is said but we would have been hard pressed to know exactly what was going on without the translations. At first it was a little difficult to follow along with the subtitles while trying to figure out who was singing but eventually you get into a rhythm with it. Annie did make a point that it would be helpful to either speak the language in which they sing or to have seen the opera before as she said she wanted to just close her eyes and listen to the music and singing.

Our seats were in the Upper Amphitheater (aka nose bleed section) but were almost dead center, giving a great view of the stage. They were excellent seats for a reasonable price of ₤27 each.

All in all it turned out to be an entertaining evening and we both really enjoyed our first opera experience. We will definitely be attending the opera again, most likely this summer when the Barber of Seville comes to London.