Libretto: Hugo von Hofmannsthal
Musical preparation: Roland Böer
Conductor: Roland Böer
Stage director: Keith Warner
Sets: Boris Kudlička
Costumes: Kaspar Glarner
Light-design: John Bishop
Video design: Bartek Macias
Motion cooperation: Michael Barry
Dramaturgy: Barry Millington, Jitka Slavíková
Cast

Elektra: Susan Bullock
Klytaimnestra: Rosalind Plowright
Chrysothemis: Anna Gabler
Aigisthos: Richard Berkeley-Steele
Orestes: Károly Szemerédy
Educator of Orestes: Miloš Horák
Confidante: Lenka Pavlovič,
Servant: Tereza Růžičková
Young servant: Michal Bragagnolo
Old servant: Tomáš Bartůněk
Overseer: Jitka Svobodová
1. maidservant: Štěpánka Pučálková
2. maidservant: Jana Horáková Levicová
3. maidservant: Sylva Čmugrová
4. maidservant: Simona Procházková
5. maidservant: Yukiko Šrejmová Kinjo

Richard Strauss (1864–1949) was one of the main composers for the New German Theatre in Prague, where, among other things, he conducted several philharmonic concerts, as well as the Prague premiere of his opera Guntram and a performance of Salome. Owing to a dispute with the theatre’s director, Angelo Neumann, the Czech premiere of his next opera, Elektra, took place at the National Theatre, on 25 April 1910, in a Czech translation and under the baton of Karel Kovařovic. Strauss himself conducted the work’s seventh performance at the National, on 12 June 1910. When it comes to the New German Theatre, Elektra was presented on 4 May 1910 by the Hoftheater Dresden, and was only staged by the opera company itself on 3 December 1921, with Alexander Zemlinsky conducting. Elektra was most recently performed at the National Theatre in a concert version on 3 and 6 June 1995, under the baton of Jiří Kout and featuring Eva Marton in the title role.
With Elektra, Strauss launched his collaboration with the librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929), with whom he formed the second-most famous creative duo in opera history, after Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte. In the wake of Salome, the mythic story taking place in the aftermath of the Trojan War is another drama of morally disrupted characters, a “brutal and bloody horror” (Paul Bekker), with even more intensified expressionist passions, imposing upon the singers the technically and physiologically challenging task of bearing up to the extensive orchestra, made up of 115 instrumentalists. The world premiere of Elektra was on 25 January 1909 at the Hofoper in Dresden. The renowned English director Keith Warner has been invited to stage the new production at the State Opera.

International coproduction with San Francisco Opera and Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe.

During the performance of Elektra, stroboscopic lamps are used, producing rapid flashes of light, which can trigger seizures in people suffering from photosensitive epilepsy.

The opera is sung in German. Czech and English subtitles.
No intermission. Approximate running time: 1 hour 40 minutes