Richard Strauss: Elektra (CD) by Birgit Nilsson (vocals), Gerhard Stolze (vocals), Gerhard Unger (vocals), Helen Watts (vocals), Marie Collier (vocals);...

CD. Decca's Elektra is a remarkable account of the opera. Recorded in 1968, produced by John Culshaw with an all-star cast, this performance captures the opera's brutality and atmosphere of nearly uninterrupted hysteria. Georg Solti conducts the Vienna Philharmonic, one of the great Strauss orchestras, in a searing reading of the frenzied score. Solti's control of the opera's waves of tension and fury makes the moment of Elektra's recognition of Orest almost unbearably triumphant, and the ending a cataclysmic summation of Elektra's passion. Birgit Nilsson fully inhabits the title role, sustaining an exhausting, obsessive level of rage. Her voice is wonderfully colorful, and she uses it to create a character of complex, conflicted motivations. Regina Resnik's singing is rich, even voluptuous, but she is stunningly monstrous and haunted as Klytämnestra. Leonie Rysanek had been scheduled to sing Chrysothemis, which would have made this an absolute dream cast, but she was forced to cancel. In her place, Marie...