R. STRAUSS Elektra • Richard Kraus, cond; Astrid Varnay (Elektra); Leonie Rysanek (Chrysothemis); Res Fischer (Klytämnestra); Helmut Melchert (Aegisth); Hans Hotter (Orest); Gerti Charlent (Vertraut der Königin); Heiner Horn (Orest’s son); Cologne RSO & Ch • CAPRICCIO 5008, mono (2 CDs: 100:32)

Old wine in a new bottle. This is the same remarkable recording issued in 2000 on Gala 100.512 and Koch Schwann 316432, the latter reviewed by Henry Fogel in Fanfare 24:3. I agree with everything he said in that review, but would like to add a few comments.

Having not heard it before, I jumped at a chance to review it because of the cast. Varnay is one of my all-time favorite sopranos, and this is undoubtedly her best Elektra. Why she doesn’t command a higher posthumous reputation puzzles me. This performance has everything: a flawless legato, rocket-like high notes, and a multi-varied interpretation. I’ve never heard Rysanek in firmer voice, every facet of her performance under control. Res Fischer was a pleasant surprise, just as beautiful of voice but more varied of character than Lisa Della Casa on the famed 1957 Mitropoulos performance. Hotter is excellent, a little infirm on a note here and there but by no means as bad as he became in the 1960s.

Yet what surprised me was the conducting of Richard Kraus, a name unknown to me. When selecting it for review, I only saw his last name and assumed it was Clemens Kraus. Much has been said of his performance here, mostly that it’s the work of a first-rate répétiteur, but I disagree. By approaching the score more lyrically, Kraus (b. 1902, the son of famed Wagner tenor Ernst Kraus) brings out felicities of orchestration often buried by those who only find “beauty in the bellow of the blast.” Whereas Mitropoulos (and Solti after him) set up the orchestra in “surround sound” (at Salzburg, Mitropoulos actually conducted sitting down in the midst of the musicians), Kraus, like the cagey Strauss specialist Karl Böhm, used terraced dynamics and shading to bring his points across. The result is an Elektra with peaks and valleys rather than a constant flow of red-hot lava. There’s much to be said in favor of both approaches.

It’s a shame that we no longer seem able to compile a cast like this for Elektra. Today’s singers have the interpretation but not this much voice. Of this recording I can unequivocally say that it is, indeed, a studio mix and not a broadcast. (The Koch release gave the date as “XIII 1953,” but it was actually made between August 22 and 28.) At 2:51 on band 4 of CD 1, I heard an obvious tape splice, and there was another towards the end of CD 2. But who cares when the result is perfection?

Collectors who aren’t completists probably don’t need a second Elektra. Though the sound quality is excellent in this new remastering (not clearer but a little fuller than the Koch), it doesn’t pull you into the maelstrom like Mitropoulos. But as I said, there are two ways of looking at anything, and there is no question that Hotter’s Orestes is much more human and multifaceted than Kurt Böhme’s with Mitropoulos. Perhaps the best way to define these alternate approaches is that Kraus yields much greater pleasure for those who want a great performance that is fully detailed, while Mitropoulos creates a more intense and complete theatrical experience. The choice is yours—or, you can just buy both.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley