That's good, we got it: people are gnomes, even where they think they are big.

Leashed, they bounce through life like small children in their playpen on their harness.

Whatever they do hangs by the threads of fate.

Ananke, as the Greeks said, keeps them bound.

With the realization of age, the weight of the binding decreases, at the same time the length of the leash shrinks: “Will and Cricket make do with the hard work.

So we're free of appearances after a few years, only closer than we were at the beginning," Goethe rhymed angrily.

Jan Brachmann

Editor in the Feuilleton.

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With the director Ulrich Rasche, who has now staged an opera for the first time at the Grand Théâtre in Geneva, namely “Elektra” by Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, all of this is clear after thirty seconds.

And then nothing happens.

The evening becomes a confirmation of what was previously known.

From Munich, where Rasche had staged Hofmannsthal's tragedy three years ago at the Residenztheater, without the music by Strauss, Rasche's stage design was taken over in Geneva and expanded a little: A cylinder with a delicately perforated outer skin (a kind of monumental wastepaper basket), which seems to have been rammed diagonally into the stage floor, there is a gallery on the outside, the floor of which consists of a moving walkway.

Inside the cylinder, the top of which can be removed, is a circular platform that rotates constantly.

The maids at the court of Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus, who had killed her husband Agamemnon, march on the treadmill – against the direction of rotation and yet on a leash.

They march there on the treadmills a little like the industrial proletariat in the paintings of early Soviet Futurism,

People only appear here as exhibits of destiny, that is, of the eternal return of the same.

The subject of the drama is the mechanics of the stage.

The stage itself makes an impression.

The light by Michael Bauer reorganizes the space in a magnificent way, creates edges, views, walls and continues the tradition of sublime light domes from Albert Speer to Gert Hof to Rammstein with virtuoso enjoyment.

Ulrich Rasche's spoken theater lives not only from the stage design, but also from a precisely rhythmic language and the power of the choral elements.

It is a theater that relates Friedrich Nietzsche's prophecy of the end of man like himself to the origin of ancient tragedy, but then gives this post-humanity a mechanical-technoid design.

Hofmannsthal also wanted to counter the "devilishly humane" atmosphere of Goethe's "Iphigenie" and Winckelmann's copies of Romans, but the humane perspective of believing that one is acting oneself and measuring leeway is not lost with him, especially not with Strauss.

In Geneva, Rasche noticeably struggles with the fact that Strauss had already shaped Hofmannsthal's language: in its chronological form of being sung as well as in the intonation that hints at motivations, desires, hopes that are more than the movement program of treadmills and turntables.

Already the first dialogue between Elektra and her hated mother Clytemnestra allows Strauss the possibility of a friendly approach, which creates unpredictability in the story.

Strauss' drama as a process collides with Rasche's world view as an installation that has become a stage.

However, this urgent unpredictability creates the conditions for the moment when Elektra and Orestes – brother and sister – recognize each other to become a climax, at which only the orchestra plays and time seems to stand still.

This moment of fraternal love is a utopia of life freed from the urge to act.

In Rasche he becomes ridiculous because the turntable keeps moving and Elektra, who is roped up, has to watch her step sequence constantly in order not to stumble or be turned away.

The Swede Ingela Brimberg sings a jubilantly bright, vocally absolutely not neglected Elektra with a real heroic soprano.

For Tanja Ariane Baumgartner, Klytämnestra – during the last two years in Salzburg – has long since become a signature role, which she doesn't scare away with her cooing depth and confidently focused height, but instead portrays her with vocal sensuality as an erotically still attractive woman.

As Chrysothemis, Sara Jakubiak is very compelling with her lyrical, warm timbre and also has strength and breath for Strauss' long phrases, which in turn open up freedom for the soul.

Károly Szemerédy as Orest and Michael Laurenz as Ägisth also leave a concise and extremely pleasant impression, despite the brevity of their performances.

Jonathan Nott, conducting the Orchester de la Suisse Romande, transforms heat and drive into a filigree play of lines in this music.

This is at the expense of the drama, but it is still fascinating because you can hear how strong Strauss' real talent - that of the sparkling conversation piece - is already announced in "Elektra".

In Geneva, the last dialogue between Ägisth and Elektra definitely sounds like “Rosenkavalier”: The ancient tragedy becomes a farce full of irony and derision.

There is more to it than meets the eye on first hearing.