Review by Amanda Holloway, Opera, May, 2011
Taiwan Taipei Part of a month-long TAIWAN FESTIVAL OF THE ARTS, the sold-out performance of Elektra by the NATIONAL SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA OF TAIWAN (March 18) may have been semi-staged, but props and set would have been a distraction: the drama sprang straight from the music. The effect on the audience in the NATIONAL CONCERT HALL was electric. They jumped up applauding and cheering as soon as the last note died away. This was the first time Elektra had been performed in Taipei by a mainly Taiwanese ensemble, though the Dresden Staatskapelle had brought it once before, in 1995. Opera training in Taiwan is at too early a stage to have produced singers able to tackle major roles such as Elektra or Klytemnestra, but on the evidence of the local singers taking the smaller parts, particularly the Fifth Maid, there are some good Taiwanese voices in the making. Taiwan has no classical opera company as yet, but the 25-year-old NSO, supported by the Ministry of Culture, gives regular concert performances of major operas, and even presented a Ring cycle in 2006-7. Audiences here are eager to learn, and their thirst for new composers and challenging repertoire would delight the hearts of any Western theatre manager. 568 Opera, May 2011 Unlike other high-profile orchestras in Asia, the vast majority of the players in the NSO are from Taiwan. Many did their graduate training in Europe, the UK or America, and took their skills back to their home city, creating an orchestra that can compete with almost any in these countries. Standards have apparently improved under successive conductors, and in this their first season with the Taiwanese music director Shao-Chia Lü, they must have gone up another level: not only did they master Elektra’s knotty score in a few weeks, but, under the Viennese trained Lü, they made the fin de siècle sound world idiomatic. He coaxed from them a burnished, glowing sound that showed off Strauss’s luscious orchestration: the strings rippled with menace and the brass and woodwind relished their angst-filled discords. ■ Family matters: Claire Primrose and Victoria Livengood as Elektra and Klytemnestra in Taipei The Australian soprano Claire Primrose (Elektra) has never sung the role on stage and this was only her third concert performance. Her powerful, dark-edged dramatic soprano was perfectly suited to Strauss’s demands; during her 90 minutes on stage, the tone didn’t waver for an instant. Quite the contrary—the voice grew in beauty and bloom through the evening. And Primrose can act too—she managed to create a driven, desperate character with just a black dress and a wild black curly wig. Casting directors should be queuing to sign her up. In spite of the concert situation there were some interesting confrontations; the Elektra Klytemnestra dynamic was riveting and even descended to a cat-fight. As Klytemnestra, the American mezzo-soprano Victoria Livengood was compelling, visually and aurally, in regal embroidered robe and bejewelled wig. Danielle Halbwachs (Chrysothemis) was the only performer whose voice was sometimes lost in the orchestration but her limpid moments were beautiful. The Taipei Philharmonic Chorus made an excellent Greek chorus. Next season Shao-Chia Lü presents one of his favourite composers—Puccini. There will be a fully staged Madama Butterfly, and the ‘adventurous repertoire’ concert performance will be Suor Angelica. A very different sound world and tradition from Strauss and his Elektra, but another step on the way to introducing great operatic repertory to Taiwanese audiences. AMANDA HOLLOWAY