to be electra...
Mad, perverse, frigid, or just plain virtuous - the character of Electra has fuelled the imagination of many a playwright. The combination of obsession and passivity in the daughter so set on revenging her father's death and so much lacking action herself, has been a puzzle, whether for Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides in their plays, or Strauss and Hofmannsthal in their opera. But it is both odd and striking how little consensus there is on the nuts and bolts of her character. Is her hate for her mother as unnatural as Clytemnestra murdering her husband? Or is she the voice of justice?
Aeschylus' play about Electra, part of the Oresteia trilogy, is a story about two competing systems of justice: an older matriarchal and tribal one that is based on revenge, and a newer patriarchal one that will be associated with the democracy of Athens. Electra and Orestes are the tipping point: they censure revenge but can only respond to it with further cycles of violence. Their dilemma shows the shortcomings of one man-made system of justice.
Sophocles's tragedy has Electra exist on the margins of society, alone but as an instrument of the gods. Her brother Orestes matches her in his desire to kill his mother. The murder of the mother itself is far less complicated since it is sanctioned by the gods; it does not need to be questioned.
In Euripides, Electra, married off to a farmer, is humiliated and cheated out of her place of power. Overall, the crimes of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus are part of a shady power struggle in the here and now. Not much is left of divine justice or the making of a political system. The question of who is right, Electra or Clytemnestra, is murky at best; guilt and shame loom large while justice seems impossible.
In that sense, Hofmannsthal and Strauss' opera is probably closest to Euripides, in so far as his Elektra is even less interested in what is right or wrong. Her story is traumatic, obsessed, psychological rather than public and political. It is about the underbelly of emotion. While the other versions of Electra's story release her out of having to mourn and remember, Elektra here dies of her frenzied joy over the murder.
So, who's Electra/Elektra? That is the question.
Ramona Thomasius
Dramaturge