Cast

Creative Team

In 1910 the American music publisher Schirmer issued a defensively proselytising short guide to the opera by Australian pianist and composer Ernest Hutcheson. As well as a detailed motivic analysis, he included the following background/synopsis of the opera and explanatory breakdown of it into scenes. - Michael Dervan

“Agamemnon, on his return from the Trojan war, is treacherously murdered by his false wife Klyt.mnestra and Aegisth, her lover. Klytämnestra herself performs the deed, slaying Agamemnon with a hatchet while he is in his bath, the unmanly Aegisth merely assisting. The guilty pair then assume the government of Mycenae, and Orest, the young son of Agamemnon, is banished. Chrysothemis and Elektra, the daughters, are virtually held prisoners in the palace. We gather that they are not allowed to marry, for their children would naturally, according to the Greek ethical code, become avengers of Agamenmon. Elektra makes no attempt to conceal her abhorrence of Klytämnestra and Aegisth, and is therefore subjected to every imaginable indignity; she is clothed in rags, beaten by Aegisth, threatened with the dungeon, and her food (after she has refused to eat with the servants) is thrown to her with that of the dogs. Chrysothemis, of a more time-serving disposition, is treated with leniency. It is the sacred obligation of Orest to avenge his father’s murder. Counselled by the oracle of Apollo, he comes to Mycenae with an old attendant, bringing a fabricated story of his own death. By this artifice the two easily gain admittance to the palace and kill Klytämnestra and Aegisth. Most of the retainers at once declare themselves for Orest, and he quickly makes himself master of the town, amid general rejoicing. Elektra sings a paean of triumph and performs a ceremonial dance in honour of Agamemnon’s memory, but her weakened frame succumbs to the emotional strain and she suddenly falls dead."