Salome / Elektra: English National Opera Guide 37

By Richard Strauss

Book Overview

English National Opera Guides are ideal companions to the opera. They provide stimulating introductory articles together with the complete text of each opera in English and the original. Richard Strauss, already known for his wonderful orchestral tone-poems, projected his genius at the turn of the 20th century to opera, and this Guide contains the texts and introductions to his first two masterpieces in what was, for him, a new genre. Despite obvious similarities both operas consist of one Act, centered upon one female title role the articles included here reveal that the operas are really quite different in subject and treatment. "Salome," based on Oscar Wilde's notorious play, has a kaleidoscopic range of orchestral color and a lurid climax in "The Dance of the Seven Veils," an episode which has challenged generations of sopranos to dance as well as sing. Elektra was derived from the tragedies of the Ancient Greeks by the Austrian poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal, and is the first of his many collaborations with Strauss. It is also a study in neurosis, ripe for Jungian comparative analysis."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0714544388
• ISBN13: 9780714544380
• Release Date: February 2011
• Publisher: Oneworld Classics
• Length: 148 Pages
• Weight: 0.46 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Elektra in english

An excellent reference. You must have this to totally enjoy this high flying soprano opera. Makes it so much more fun.