HILDEGARD BEHRENS: Some Review Excertps of Her ELEKTRA Performances

"Five seasons earlier, in 1994, another astounding German artist, the soprano Hildegard Behrens, was so riveting as the title character of Strauss' Elektra, that when I checked my watch as I always do when the curtain closes, I couldn't believe that ninety minutes had just passed. Anyone who had seen Behrens' amazing leap off the parapet of Castel Sant Angelo of Zeferelli's staging of Tosca knows how daring she could be onstage - she was one of the rare singers who love to move. Her Elektra was a magnificent madwoman in perpetual motion, vocally and physically. Somehow, at the end of the performance, you felt both drained and elated - another gift of the great singers."
- Joseph Volpe (General Manager/Metropolitan Opera 1990-2006)
from p. 224 of "The Toughest Show on Earth: My Rise and Reign at the Metropolitan Opera."
Knopf, New York 2006; 320 pages.

"...she is without a doubt the greatest Elektra today."
- Paris 1998


"Hildegard Behrens was in best form, younger than ever, playing the role of Elektra with a remarkable discretion, delivering high notes with magnificent thunder, devouring the text, subtly ironic with Klytemnestra, overwhelming at Orestes' arrival, from beginning to end filled with a pathos that culminated with the final bars. A superb concert!"
- Le Figaro March 14, 1998


"Hildegard Behrens has lost none of her extraordinary vocal powers. More at ease with this score here than in her live recording, she is without a doubt the greatest Elektra today. The role of Elektra, so difficult to cast with the ideal interpreter, seems to have been written for her shining timbre to which all possibilities have been granted, from the purest emission to a voice almost shattered. Her high notes can be at once soft and crystalline, piercing and aggressive (how many singers today have the ability to deliver such attacks?). Her very expressive low register finds here its full use. Her sheer vocal power allows her to face an orchestra in concert unleashing impressive dynamic levels without any risk.The entire hall rose on its feet for an Elektra this exceptional, in a concert version that will be counted among the greatest."
- Le Concertographe, March 1998

"...the musical event of the century"
- Salzburg 1996

"...a drop-dead performance that had the house standing, stomping and cheering from the moment the music stopped."
- NY Newsday, 1994


Vengeance Run Wild, Operatically
It helps, of course, that the production includes a triumphant performance by Hildegard Behrens in the title role.
Wearing a black gown and white makeup, Miss Behrens is a memorably dramatic Elektra, obsessed with avenging the death of her father, Agamemnon, at the hands of her mother, Klytamnestra, and her mother's lover, Aegisth. When not railing against her fate ("I'm nursing a vulture inside my body"), this Elektra dominates the stage, whether dancing maniacally or sitting absolutely still, her intense obsession undiminished. A rapturous ovation for Miss Behrens at opera's end is richly deserved.
- NY Times, Sep 12, 1994


The Metropolitan Opera begins its 55th season of Texaco broadcasts at 9 tonight on WVIZ Channel 25 (simulcast on WCLV-FM/95.5) with an engrossing production of this darkest of Strauss operas. The principal reason is Hildegard Behrens, the German soprano who seems to have no fear.

Behrens completely envelops the part... Here is an Elektra who develops from unseemly hag to luminous, loving daughter with a conviction you can almost taste. The role lies at the extremities of Behrens' soprano, but she surmounts every obstacle by focusing on the expressive center of each vocal gesture. There is anger and vulnerability to spare in her singing, and Behrens rises to fervent heights in the Recognition Scene, in which she caresses the brother, Orest, she thought dead.
- The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) Sep 12, 1994

When the Metropolitan Opera audience rose to its feet at the end of this season's first performance of Richard Strauss's "Elektra" on Thursday night, and kept applauding and stomping until well after the house lights had come up, it was a fitting tribute to Hildegard Behrens.
...there are few other dramatic sopranos today who can match her accomplishments.

Elektra's cries cursing her sister and welcoming her brother had a piercing emotional authenticity. Her recognition of Orest was sweetly frail; one could sense the relief in the lines. And when vengeance was finally achieved, Ms. Behrens danced with stiff arms and jerky movements that made it seem as if the music were volcanically forcing its way out of her body.
-NY Times, Jan 8, 1994

"... so much of her performance is felt instinctively from the heart and is communicated to her audience in this live concert through her psychological understanding of the part expressed in her vibrant, very personal tone."
- Gramophone, April 1989


"Certainly Behrens is the Elektra of our day, as surely as Birgit Nilsson's was of hers, and Varnay's of hers, and one of the many things that makes her Elektra memorable is how it develops over the virtually uninterrupted course of the whole opera -- how many emotions pour forth from the same untiring voice... She wielded her gleaming voice like an unsheathed sword at the end of the Klytemnestra scene, and there was heartbreaking tenderness at the climax of the Recognition Scene. There was sarcasm, irony, implacable strength and surprising vulnerability in her portrayal, and as she crouched on the platforms above the orchestra she was as mesmerizing to watch as she was to hear. Behrens is the kind of actress who can command a scene even when she is silent. Her performances of this role represent the fulfillment of all her vocal and artistic possibilities, and to experience this has been our great privilege."
- Boston Globe, Nov 16, 1988


"On stage almost from the beginning to the very end of this one-act opera, Elektra must be heard -even after well over one hour of all-out singing - above a full orchestra playing at its loudest. This and other obstacles proved relatively little trouble for Hildegard Behrens, the Elektra during the Boston Symphony Orchestra's semi-staged version of the opera at Carnegie Hall Friday evening. In its power and unbroken intensity, Ms.. Behrens's performance was quite simply staggering. Her voice poured out in piercing, sweeping waves of sound."
- NY Times, Dec 20, 1987



There's MORE on Ms. Behrens' Elektra in FanFaire.