Brigitte Fassbaender's Horrifying Klytamnestra

Disclaimer - I own nothing

[@jasonhurd4379]

This was absolutely mesmerising. Fassbaender's career origins as a straight actress are much in evidence as the raddled, haggard queen of Mycenae. And for the possessor of such a beautiful voice to demonstrate the value of making an ugly sound, purely for the sake of the drama, is the mark of a great artist. What a pity that her Nurse in Die Frau ohne Schatten, which she sang to great acclaim, was not filmed for posterity! Kupfer's direction is also interesting. He makes it clear for example, through Marton's silent reactions during the 'nightmare' narration, that Elektra is torn between her filial love for her mother and her filial duty to avenge her father's death. A fascinating, thought-provoking production.

[@Sir.Larselot]

She´s one of my favorite mezzos. At the moment she is the director of our upcoming Elektra premiere. She´s very kind to the ensemble and by God- she´s knowing very well what she's talking about and give the opera a life. But no wonder, because she was working with the leading artists on this stuff.

[@Trudetenor]

Wonderful expressive diction! Great vocal approach! Fabulous production of Harry Kupfer.

[@jasonhurd4379]

Watching this again (it really is spellbinding), it strikes me that Hofmannsthal's text is a model of clarity. I have forgotten a good 40% of the German I learned as a boy, yet I can understand virtually every word from Fassbaender's mouth. Strauss' setting also is a great help in comprehension, keeping much of the line in the low and middle registers where the text is far more understandable. May I recommend that all opera fans reading this make an effort to learn German? Most of the substantive writing on opera, such as magazines, criticism and such works as Jürgen Kesting's Die großen Sänger and other vital reference works, is in German. There are also all those wonderful August Everding interviews on KZbin. If you are not conversant in German, you really are missing out on a lot of substantial content.

[@pega17pl]

Thank you very much, Jason! Of course German speaking teacher like Lotte Lehmann (Grace Bumbry) and Marily Horne (Renee Fleming) recommened their students to learn German. Of course for singing but also because German is and was "lingue francais" at world of music. The great Jessey Norman changed while filmed for a portrait of her ("Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen") to German if she wanted to speak clearly what she musically meant. Example the word "Ausdruck" in German means better what she had to say about singing Lieder (here Mahler "Kindertotenlieder") than "Expression" in English. - Geeetings, Heinz

[@JK-xz6mj]

This is by far the best of the Hofmannsthal's interfering with Strauss, it's the most "German". The others are decided more "Austrian" and are worse for it.

[@gowanhewlett745]

Fassbaender is SUPERB.....incomparable. Both musically and dramatically. THANKYOU

[@fabriziodiberardino3448]

Buonasera, grande interpretazione,qui non c'è solo voce ma anche recitazione, costumi,scenografia e presenza scenica,👏👏👏.signora elsa, la umiltà di riconoscere e quella che ci fa salire il più alto possibili ,🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🌷🎇🎇🎇🎇 Buonasera sera lehongrin

[@williamfrom1930]

If only singing and productions this exciting still could be seen on stages now. What happened to the BALLS in opera?! This art form has become an utter bore in the 21st century! No great directors, productions or singers.

[@LohengrinO]

only not great? people going onstage naked carrying toilet cans... every imbecile who hates greatness found their way into opera productions

[@williamfrom1930]

@@LohengrinOAbsolutely. Opera has been destroyed by people with no balls who let mediocre voice teachers, mediocre directing and mediocre singers take to the front of global stages unprepared. There is no more balls in this profession. The greatest talents who could be the Fassbenders and Freni's of this generation will just burn out and be destroyed because their useless voice teachers just feed their egos, want them to "sound pretty" and don't teach them the real, old school method that products correct and long term, STRONG voices. Everyone sings like a pussy today to just sound pretty and nobody trained them to sing with BALLS. The training is dead, and the art form is fucked. Save a very few exceptions, mediocre singers are entrusted with teaching positions at top schools teaching the greatest talents of today. Hopeless.

[@scottgrunow5201]

She is not just recounting the nightmare. She is experiencing it again

[@Ingo-s9e]

Exactly .... she is living the nightmare at all .... never heard that so intense and frightening

[@fclpjg]

Thanks once again! Another artiste who I admire greatly...

[@karldelavigne8134]

Fassbender is so mesmerising, and vocally secure here, unlike the travesty of Karita Mattila at Covent Garden last week.

[@greatmomentsofopera7170]

I love Fassbaender in this role. Such extremity of style. Wouldn’t want to hear this version every time, but it’s a great addition to the repertoire of possibilities. She said she sang every note Strauss ever wrote for mezzo. Why do they always put Klytemnestra in drag makeup though. I never get this - it makes her in to a pantomime dame rather than an example of someone experiencing psychological hell due to the weight of their own guilt and evil actions which is a real phenomenon if one has read any Freud or Jung or even seen it in real life, not a cartoony exaggeration.

[@LohengrinO]

I dont think this is drag makeup... at least in its intention... they are trying to channel the make up of the Ancient Greek Tragedy which always wanted to channel the horrifying element of the real Tragedy... (if you type Helen Papadakis in google you will get a hint of how the tragic makeup is created)... in this particular performance I think they have mixed Ancient Greek with Ancient Chinese tragic elements (another culture where the tragic element excelled)... later on Gays took some of these elements and made them all about... fucking and posing (As usual!!! :D)

[@LohengrinO]

at 6:31 in kzbin.info/www/bejne/m5LJgJ6Njc-koMU, tribesmen respond to seeing Callas for the first time

[@ssballs]

I'd say she's a degenerated old queen, sick, as she's singing. If Kabuki is pantomime I could agree, alas you seem to have a low opinion of make-up in the theatre. She is what she is, I'd have some rings around my eyes too if I had been through what she has. Maybe a touch more black? 🥳

[@greatmomentsofopera7170]

@@LohengrinO incredible video! Thanks for sharing!

[@pega17pl]

Christa Ludwig refused costumes and make-up not fitting Klytamnestra as a queen. Even she is a murder she is still queen. Her singing says enough. - Heinz

[@scottgrunow5201]

Love the way she is supporting herself by ropes. Shows she is trapped even though she thinks she has trapped Elektra

[@pasolinipersempre7044]

I love and respect Fassbaender more than most of the singers of the 1970s to 2000s, but frankly, if you want to have nightmares with memories of a Klytämnestra, you must try Astrid Varnay's under Karl Böhm in 1981. Absolutely horrendous ! Available on KZbin, of course...!

[@LohengrinO]

yep I have posted that as well: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n2Kzg6Slr5h-g8U

[@xv12commander]

Non sono espertissimo ma quella versione mi sembra la migliore in assoluto, anche la parte in cui lei si inferocisce quando Elettra parla del fratello è una delle poche fatte un modo da fare veramente paura (Varnay).

[@NLidar]

This music is disgusting.. in the greatest and most genius way possible. This is like a psyche themed horror film.. It gets under your skin and you can feel the thick darkness running through your veins.. and Mdm. Fassbaender's delivery is frightening.. It's like the echo of a thunder filling the earth on a cold and murky night. Her genius use of highly mixed chest voice (very difficult; for example 2:09) and her phrasing is as if she IS the person.. As if you can hear her train of devilish thoughts.. I can barely breath properly after watching this. The greatest nightmare ever.

[@LohengrinO]

totally agree... Strauss is the composer that flows like venom in your veins

[@jasonhurd4379]

@@LohengrinO N. Lidar's use of the word 'disgusting' is interesting. My musicology professor at conservatory refused to attend a local concert performance of Salome (with Linda Kelm! It was fabulous! Voice even bigger than Nilsson's) on the basis that it was an 'immoral' opera. When queried further, it turned out that her distaste had nothing to do with the plot. She felt, similarly to Plato, that the sinuous, quasi-Oriental excesses of the score were seductive and dangerous, capable of undermining a person's moral and ethical principles.

[@NLidar]

@@jasonhurd4379 I believe that disgust is one of the goals for such a role as Klytamnestra. Disgust, hatred, repugnance, detestation; all the characteristics of an audience watching a Straussian "villain". But if the audience really immerses and submerges themselves into the music and into the universe of Strauss - those emotions can be easily turned around into sympathy, concern, commiseration. A feeling of disgust to Klytamnestra especially in an opera like Elektra not only contributes to the murky and vile 'mood' of the opera (it literally starts with slaves cleaning off blood) but also provokes more thoughts into the audience such as "Why does Elektra still have an inkling of love for her cruel mother?" or "Why does her mother defy any act of kindness from Elektra, her daughter?". It creates the horror aspect of tragedy.

[@NLidar]

@@jasonhurd4379 And by the way, I completely disagree with your teacher. A person who wishes to know what opera is, what it can be and what it's essence is has to experience the extremes. From the melancholy romanticism of Bellini, the baroque opulence and passion of Händel to the horror, drama and nerves of a Strauss opera, and the strikingly realistic, modernist and atonal sounds of a Berg opera.

[@jasonhurd4379]

@@NLidar I do agree with you. Incidentally, we know from the letters exchanged between Strauss and Hofmannsthal that both men were most anxious that Klytämnestra not be turned into a caricature by the actress. If you go back to the Sophocles original which was the inspiration for Hofmannsthal's text, Clytemnestra never once loses her noble, regal bearing, as the same character does on several occasions in Aeschylus' Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers. I also greatly regret that Strauss did not further develop the atonal experiments he carried out in Klytämnestra's 'nightmare' scene. We hear hints of them in portions of the Nurse's music in Die Frau ohne Schatten, but he was never to be as harmonically daring as this again.

[@elsaasta5164]

Sono mortificata di non essere in grado di formulare nessun commento non conosco questa Opera tranne di aver capito il nome della protagonista che noi pronunciamo Clitemnestra, storia forse tratta dalla mitologia dove la stessa si macchia di uxsoricidio il cui marito, ma non ne sono sicura, si chiamasse Egisto. Caro Lohengrin, prendi questo commento con con sguardo umano... perché come avrai capito.. Io non ne so nulla.. Nada de Nada!! Un grazie con il cuore.. ❤️❤️❤️Elsa

[@LohengrinO]

Elektra, figlia di Agamennone, complotta con il fratello Orest, in modo che Orest possa uccidere la madre Clitemnestra, perché Clitennestra aveva assassinato suo marito Agamennone insieme al suo amante Aigisthe

[@elsaasta5164]

Lohengrin O... Hai pienamente ragione ora che tu mi hai rinfrescata la lezione ricordo benissimo la storia..mi sembrava che riguardasse la mitologia solamente che ho fatto un po' di confusione.. I miei studi sono alquanto lontani.. però vedi caro Lohengrin come tutto è utile.. persino l'ignoranza, la curiosità ed anche l' umiltà di chiedere le cose. Sei stato molto gentile e ti ringrazio caldamente...Elsa

[@corlyssd]

Not my cuppa, but as a Fassbaender fan since I heard her performance of Venus in Il Giardino di Amore in 1965 (available on YT), I want to see everything available. First thing I thought when I saw her was "Norma Desmond." Of course I know the story if not the libretto.

[@petercallahan7321]

God I loved her in this production. It's such an extreme take on this most extreme character that it's completely understandable why it's not to all tastes (she was hilariously booed on opening night and just smiled and waved). I'm not even sure I'd want to come back to it too often lol. But here she's fortunate to have an expressionistic production that complements her insanity (in the Schenk production she seems comical amid the drabness) and glittering conducting to back her up. She was the ballsiest of mezzos

[@LohengrinO]

...she was booed in this performance?

[@LohengrinO]

@@gabrielb8871 I would never boo... not even the worst performance... this Klytamnestra was FANTASTIC... shame on them

[@LohengrinO]

@@gabrielb8871 didnt the same thing occur in Fleming's Scala Lucrezia? if we exclude the bad taste G6 cadenza she sang at the finale, the rest of the singing was Phenomenally good... flawless.... but they had decided to boo hard

[@petercallahan7321]

Lohengrin O fassbaender was an exceptionally controversial artist in some of her roles and this was one of those times. Grotesque ladies in this part are nothing new but even by those standards Kupfers and Fassbaender’s take on the part was considered extreme. And I do think in more sober surroundings she wasn’t as effective. The drab Schenk production really didn’t do her interpretation any favors for example. She was compelling but set against bland sets, a too loud orchestra, and a non-existent costar, what was effective in Vienna looked mighty campy at the met. Abbado was booed because right before opening night he announced her was leaving Vienna for Berlin. So that was pure politics

[@petercallahan7321]

Gabriel B it’s funny because the first night of any production rarely determines its overall reception. This production was booed but stayed for 20+ years and is now considered a semi-classic. Oh well, the new Elektra I find relatively inoffensive just exceptionally dull. Kupfer, regardless of ones opinion of his aesthetics (personally I think this Elektra is physically gorgeous) knew how direct singers and help them loose their inhibitions (Studer is quite exciting here for example and she’s hardly the most charismatic and glamorous lady). The new production just kind of sits there and refuses to budge lol

[@andresarchilaboiton333music]

I love this... Thanks Lohengrin O

[@ggrobbins9353]

Incredible actress!! Klytemnestra is one crazy, paranoid lady. And fhat’s Exactly what you get!

[@LohengrinO]

exactly

[@Dianaemanuel]

Is there any way to see the rest? This is wonderful!

[@LohengrinO]

marton's elektra? meeeeeeh

[@jmtcor]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/gHWlcmiobsZklbs

[@greatmomentsofopera7170]

Her Legato is exceptional, and yet I can understand virtually every word, unlike so many others (even amazing actresses like Waltraud Meier)

[@karldelavigne8134]

She excels in Lieder. I love how deftly she colours the voice and her diction is good because she sings through the consonants rather than treating them as bookends to vowels.

[@greatmomentsofopera7170]

@@karldelavigne8134 Agreed!

[@Empoweredwoman1234]

Wow! I didn't understand a single word of this but it was mot necessary, as the exceptional Callas style acting says it all. What a shame Callas did not perform this role. She would have been brilliant. I did not think opera even allowed for singers to make ugly sounds to bring a character to life. I personally don't think Callas had an ugly voice, but may have made ugly sounds at times for the drama.By the way, what is the name of the opera, and is there a video of the whole thing with Brigitte playing this character. I do not know anything about Strauss or his work as I'm mostly familiar with Bel Canto operas thanks to Callas and other greats.

[@LohengrinO]

it is Elektra by Richard Strauss, yes the entire recording exists it is exceptional... I completely agree with you about the "ugliness" in Callas' voice

[@barbaramazzeo797]

Callas stated she did not like Opera like Elektra or Salome'.

[@Empoweredwoman1234]

@@barbaramazzeo797 that’s a shame.

[@JK-xz6mj]

I think it is necessary to know the words... if you don't know what's being spoken then you'll have to rely on other visual cues, and why you're thankful for this overacting displayed by Fassbeander, but she's acting for the whole audience including people at the back. Callas is one of the reasons why operas are now sung in their language of origin, so words do matter, and the phrasing does matter. I think to suggest Callas for this role is to betray how truly you don't understand what Callas is all about.

[@fabriziodiberardino3448]

Pardon,lohengrin✋🍷🐶

[@cosimoepicoco7022]

Le voci sono splendide.Non so altro, per cortesia in poche parole di che si tratta?Grazie di cuore.

[@Cor6196]

Fassbaender canta il ruolo di Klytemnestra - la madre di Elektra (Eva Marton) - che ha ucciso suo marito, il padre di Elektra (Agamemnon) per vendicare il suo aver ucciso la figlia Ifigenia come sacrificio agli dei prima di iniziare la guerra di Troia. Clitennestra è tormentata dalla colpa e dalla consapevolezza che Elektra desidera solo la morte della madre. Inizia questa scena lamentandosi del fatto che non riesce a dormire e fa sogni terribili. Poteva Elektra conoscere la cura per i brutti sogni? (Ah si! Uno sacrificio humano. Di chi? Di una vecchia. Una madre ...

[@cosimoepicoco7022]

Ed Esso grazie di cuore.Posseggo una Turandot Con Eva Marton, memorabile.La trama di Elektra, lei ha avuto il dono di spiegarmela in modo superbo in poche righe,grazie ancora

[@cosimoepicoco7022]

Ed Esso ringrazio anche il gentile Marco Tariello,non trovo il suo commento grazie.

[@eberlinpascal2837]

Elle tout simplement fabuleuse ,comme actrice et comme chanteuse .Mais ici le jeu d'acteur prime sur la musique ,et c'est à mon sens plus du théâtre que de l'Opera ce genre de répertoire .J'ai beaucoup de mal à rentrer dans cette musique qui me déconcerte et qui m'effraie .Au risque de paraître stupide ou ignorant ,mais cela m'est égal et chacun ses goûts .Le morbide et la psychanalyse nbe sont pas pour moi .Mais encore une fois bravo à l'artiste ,car c'est une performance .

[@rednmasgamas]

wooooooooooooow

[@Hagen-nu2pp]

Die kann was brigitte!! Abgefahren......akon

[@XPRT10R]

Pretty scary in real life as well, she was (...is)

[@LohengrinO]

reallyyyyyyyyyyyyy? speak more....

[@XPRT10R]

@@LohengrinO LOL! Well, I sang in a couple of her masterclasses, way back when I was a student and worked on some repertoire with her. She was not the kindest or sweetest woman, by any mean. She was particularly hard on me and was quite abruptly aggressive and scary to face on stage, but then she notoriously disliked tenors and men in general. And it showed, especially as She was very obviously and markedly much more amenable and affable to/with girls. I disagreed with everything she said about singing, yet I have always found HER singing absolutely compellingly impressive and EXPressive. Her lieder, especially Wolf or Schuman, are always imbued with a haunting quality and artistically highly accomplished. World class definitely. She also has been a great champion and supportive of a good number of singers (mostly Mezzos) are today very successful professionals and owe her a debt of gratitude.

[@LohengrinO]

@@XPRT10R checked her sign... a Cancer... among the most treacherous, hidden malicious and lying human beings but with a lot of compassion for the suffering (if u dont suffer U MUST DIE!)

[@LohengrinO]

@@XPRT10R ...that is why she is so Flawless in her Malice here... really good people cannot play Malicious well (Capricorns, Scorpios, Cancers... greatest Malice actors ever)

[@XPRT10R]

@@LohengrinOThat's it in one! LOL (although come to think of it, she caused me a lot of suffering but showed me no compassion at all. I DID almost die, though... hahahhahah)