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Tosca, Mélisande, and the heroine of Erwartung singing her mad chromatics. I rather agree with Abbate who sees Elektra as more than this: we both ''hear the opera's voices."37 |
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Sophokles and Strauss/Hofmannsthal give Elektra unique victories. For her to kill the tyrants is essential for freedom, both her own and the city's. Certain abuses call for retaliation. Even Elektra's death echoes the motif of freedom. Is life with Pylades to be preferred? Elektra's dance of death is a celebration at the peak of her life and power, her aristeia. She did not go gently, but danced into that good night, because her words and feet "had forked lightning."38 |
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Abbate C. (1989) "Elektra's Voice: Music and Language in Strauss's Opera", in Puffett (1989). |
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Adams S.M. (1957) Sophocles the Playwright, Phoenix supp. 3 (Toronto: 1957). |
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Barker A. (1989) Greek Musical Writings: I. The Musician and his Art (1984; rpt. Cambridge: 1989), and II. Harmonic and Acoustic Theory (Cambridge: 1989). |
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Blundell M. (1989) Helping Friends and Harming Enemies: A Study in Sophocles and Greek Ethics (Cambridge: 1989). |
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Clément C. (1988) Opera, or The Undoing of Women, trans. B. Wing (Minnesota: 1988). |
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Commoti G. (1989) Music in Greek and Roman Culture, trans. R. Munson (Baltimore: 1989). |
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Del Mar N. (1986) Richard Strauss: A Critical Commentary on his Life and Works, I (1962; rpt. Ithaca, N.Y.: 1986). |
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Denniston J.D. (1968) Euripides: Electra (1939; rpt. Oxford: 1968). |
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Easterling P.E. (1989) "Elektra's Story", in Puffett (1989) 1016. |
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Ewans M. (1982) Wagner and Aeschylus: The Ring and the Oresteia (London: 1982). |
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(1984) "Elektra: Sophokles, Von Hofmannsthal, Strauss", Ramus 13.2 (1984) 13554. |
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Fanon F. (1963) The Wretched of the Earth, trans. C. Farrington (New York: 1963). |
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Gilliam B. (1991) Richard Strauss's Elektra (Oxford: 1991). |
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Grene D. and Lattimore R. (eds) (1992) The Complete Greek Tragedies II (1942; rpt. Chicago: 1992). |
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Harewood The Earl of (ed.) (1987) The Definitive Kobbe's Opera Book (1919; rpt. with corr. New York: 1987). |
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Heaney S. (1990) The Cure at Troy: A Version of Sophocles' Philoctetes (London: 1990). |
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37 "The protean Elektra of this reading is a far cry from the empty vessel, the woman without access to deed or action, envisaged by some critics (those, it must be said, who are deaf to the opera's voices, reading words alone)," Puffett (1989) 127. Roger W. Oliver has two main criticisms of Clément's unrelenting "diatribe against the victimization of women in opera": "First, it is impossible, even within the librettos themselves, to make the schematic death is bad, life is good dichotomy underlying her assumptions . . . Isn't there a nobility and even heroic quality to Butterfly's death that will never be available to Pinkerton? . . . In equating strength and power and survival with virtue, Clément is going against the grain of many of the operas she discusses," (1992) 41. |
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38 Thanks first to John Sullivan and Irene de Jong for careful editing. Thanks also to Thomas MacCary for his invaluable suggestions. Then I thank Albert Liu, Bridget McDonald and Thomas Rosenmeyer for their help with this paper. Karen Elaine pointed out the influence of Tod und Verklärung, and Beethoven's Pastorale, and added to the musical interpretations. Archer Martin has also contributed useful research. |
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