Margaret Chalker

The Martin Kušej production of Richard Strauss's "Elektra", filmed live at the Opernhaus Zurich on 30 November and 4 December 2005. Eva Johansson stars as Elektra, with Marjana Lipovšek as Klytämnestra, Melanie Diener as Chrysothemis, Rudolf Schashing as Aegisth, and Alfred Muff as Orest. Christoph von Dohnányi conducts.

“Let us assume that Switzerland is truly a paradise. The music hereto was written long ago. We have merely forgotten it.” (Daniel Schmid) This is the material from which the most Swiss of all operas is made: the legendary Wilhelm Tell – a Swiss hero: straightforward, a primus inter pares of the indomitable freedom fighters, a good shot, surefire. A myth that becomes a poetic playground: nature in turmoil, the struggle for freedom and forbidden love. A legendary overture at a gallop with an iconic post horn motif – all this and much more in the thirty-seventh and last opera by Rossini.