Richard Strauss’s opera Elektra premiered in Dresden in 1905 and centers on the daughter of King Agamemnon.
The first performance took place at the Semperoper on 25 January 1909, not in 1905; 1905 was the year Strauss completed the score. Hugo von Hofmannsthal wrote the German libretto, adapting his own play based on Sophocles’ Greek tragedy. The opera’s central character is Elektra, who is consumed by the desire to avenge her father’s murder.
The plot focuses on Elektra’s conflict with her mother, Klytämnestra, and her hope that her brother Orest will return. Strauss uses a very large orchestra, dissonant harmony, and intense vocal writing to create a concentrated psychological drama.
Elektra is often confused with Strauss’s later Ariadne auf Naxos or with operas based directly on other Greek myths. It is also important to distinguish the composition date from the premiere date: Strauss completed the opera in 1905, but its first staging occurred in Dresden in 1909.