New York Philharmonic Presents "Elektra" at Lincoln Center

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Thursday, 26 March 2026 16:48

Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Chris Lee

At Lincoln Center’s wonderful David Geffen Hall, on the afternoon of Sunday, February 1st, I had the privilege to attend a superb concert featuring the New York Philharmonic, under the exceptional direction of the eminent Manfred Honeck.

The extraordinary first half of the event consisted of a magnificent account of Ludwig van Beethoven’s masterly Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 61, from 1806, here brilliantly played by the remarkable virtuoso María Dueñas—she wore a fabulous, pale blue gown—whose debut with this ensemble was with these performances. The initial, Allegro ma non troppo movement begins modestly but not without an undertone of suspense that rapidly intensifies; the music becomes more forceful but also lyrical before the soloist is heard. In its complex development, the movement builds to a kind of climax more than once before the violinist’s own cadenza and then concludes emphatically. The ensuing Larghettois song-like too—indeed even more so—as well as meditative in character—a hushed quality pervades the movement. The Rondo finale, marked Allegro, is much more playful and dance-like, charming yet dynamic with a celebratory ethos and some pastoral elements, although there are quieter passages; it closes abruptly but triumphantly. Enthusiastic applause elicited a delightful encore from Dueñas, Applemania by Aleksey Igudesman.

The second half of the program was maybe even more memorable: the first presentation by this ensemble—here gloriously rendered—of the enthralling Elektra Symphonic Rhapsody completed in 2014, which was refashioned by Honeck—and orchestrated by Tomáš Ille—from the score for the eponymous and celebrated 1908 opera by Richard Strauss. In March 1906, the composer wrote as follows to his incomparable librettist, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, about beginning work on the subject:

I am as keen as ever on Elektra and have already cut it down a good deal for my own private use. The only question I have not finally decided in my mind … is whether, immediately after Salome, I shall have the strength to handle a subject so similar to it in many respects with an entirely fresh mind, or whether I wouldn't do better to wait a few years before approaching Elektra, until I myself have moved much farther away from the Salome style.

The librettist replied thus:

The blend of colors in the two subjects strikes me as quite different in all essentials; in Salome,much is, so to speak, purple and violet, the atmosphere is torrid; in Elektra, on the other hand, it is mixture of night and light, or black and bright. What is more, the rapid rising sequence of events relating to Orest and his deed which leads up to victory and purification — a sequence which I can imagine much more powerful in music than in the written word — is not matched by anything of a corresponding, or even faintly similar kind in Salome.

The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.

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