BACKGROUND
After Helen was seduced away from her husband, Menelaus, by the Trojan Prince Paris, Menelaus asked for assistance from his brother Agamemnon, King of Mycenae. As commander-in-chief of the Greek forces, Agamemnon assembled many troops and 1,000 ships to attack Troy. The goddess Artemis, displeased with Agamemnon, caused a constant east wind to blow, preventing his ships from sailing east toward Troy. Oracles told Agamemnon that if he sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia, the wind would subside. He sacrificed her, and the Greeks sailed for Troy.
But the sacrifice turned Klytämnestra, Agamemnon’s wife, against him.
After ten years of war, Troy fell.
When Agamemnon returned from Troy, Klytämnestra and her lover, Aegisth, murdered him with an axe. They sent away Agamemnon’s young son, Orest, to prevent the possibility of his avenging his father’s death, but his two sisters, Elektra and Chrysothemis, remained in Mycenae. Elektra has been punished by years of physical abuse and deprivation, as she awaits the return of her brother to avenge their father’s death.
THE OPERA
Five maids and their overseer are in the courtyard of Agamemnon’s palace, wondering whether Elektra will appear, as usual, to wail for the dead king. When the maids leave, Elektra appears for her nightly ceremony. She implores the spirit of her father to appear, dwelling upon his murder and her vow of bloody vengeance. Her sister, Chrysothemis, interrupts with the warning that their mother and Aegisth plan to imprison Elektra. Chrysothemis, who wants only to have children and live a normal life, pleads with Elektra to give up her obsession with their father’s murder so that they may both be allowed to leave the palace.
Elektra does not comfort her. The sisters hear their mother, Klytämnestra, approaching, and Chrysothemis rushes away. Klytämnestra enters with her retinue. She has long suspected Elektra of clairvoyant powers, and she asks Elektra for advice. She wants to know what sacrifice she can make to the gods to free her of the pain that is destroying her life.
Elektra tells her mother that it is her death at the hands of her son, Orest, that will release her from her nightmares. Her mother collapses in terror, but then, hearing secret news from a confidante, she laughs hysterically and departs.
Chrysothemis rushes in to tell Elektra that Orest has been killed. Elektra resolves that she must avenge her father herself, and she tries to enlist her sister’s help in murdering their mother. When Chrysothemis understands what her sister is asking her to do, she flees.
Elektra begins to dig for the axe that killed Agamemnon when a stranger appears. Only when several servants come quietly into the courtyard and kiss his feet does Elektra realize that he is her brother, Orest. Crying his name, she embraces him. Elektra encourages her brother to avenge their murdered father.
Klytämnestra and her attendants believe that this stranger is carrying the news of Orest’s death, and they welcome him and his companion into the palace. The screams of Klytämnestra can be heard in the courtyard as Orest kills her. Aegisth returns from the hunt. Elektra joyfully lights his way into the house, and Orest kills him as well.
Chrysothemis and her women return to rejoice that Orest has returned, and the sisters exult together. Elektra declares that they should celebrate their release with nothing but silence and dance, and she begins to dance wildly. Her sister, frightened, goes inside. Alone, Elektra dances, exulting in the vengeance of which she has dreamed. But the release of so much pent-up hate and euphoria proves too much for her. Just as Chrysothemis returns, Elektra falls to the earth, dead.