2025-2026 OPERA AND BALLET SEASON
ELEKTRA
Richard Strauss
Libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, based on his tragedy Elektra.
Music pub: Fürstner/Schott
Representative in Italy: Casa Musicale Sonzogno di Piero Ostali, Milan
Concertmaster and Conductor ENRICO CALESSO
Director MARCO FILIBERTI
Set Designer BENITO LEONORI
Costume Designer DANIELE GELSI
Lighting designer ALESSANDRO CARLETTI
Video Designer MARIO SPINACI
Choreography and Movement Direction EMANUELE BURRAFATO
NEW PRODUCTION BY FONDAZIONE TEATRO LIRICO GIUSEPPE VERDI DI TRIESTE
Main characters and performers
Klytämnestra
OKKA VON DER DAMERAU (19, 21, 26, 28 June)
SANJA ANASTASIA (20, 27 June)
Elektra
ELENA BATOUKOVA-KERL (19, 21, 26, 28 June)
DIANA LAMAR (20, 27 June)
Chrysothemis
SIMONE SCHNEIDER (19, 21, 26, 28 June)
REGINA RIEL (20, 27 June)
Aegisth ALEXANDER SCHULZ
Orest
MIKHAIL PETRENKO (19, 21, 26, 28 June)
LARS FOSSER (20, 27 June)
Der Pfleger des Orest / Ein alter Diener ANDREA PELLEGRINI
Ein junger Diener SAVERIO FIORE
Die Aufseherin VALENTINA BILANCIONE
Die erste Magd SOPHIE HAAGEN
Die zweite Magd BENEDETTA MARCHESI
Die dritte Magd MARTA LOTTI
Die vierte Magd VERONICA PRANDO
Die fűnfte Magd MANDY FREDRICH
Die Vertraute/ The Confidante VIDA MATIČIČ MALNARŠIČ
Die Schleppträgerin / The Train-Bearer FRANCESCA PALMENTIERI / ELISA SERAFINI
Choir master PAOLO LONGO
Orchestra, choir and technical staff of the Fondazione Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi di Trieste
Performed in the original German with Italian and English surtitles.
After an absence of forty-eight years from Trieste, one of the defining works of the Central European cultural tradition returns to the city: Richard Strauss’s Elektra, a landmark opera whose influence has resonated throughout twentieth-century music and continues to this day. Presented in a new production by the Teatro Verdi di Trieste, the work also marks the operatic debut of the acclaimed film and theatre director Marco Filiberti. Conducted by Enrico Calesso and performed by an exceptionally accomplished cast of Strauss specialists assembled with meticulous care, the production remains faithful to the work’s classical foundations as refracted through a twentieth-century sensibility, while surprising audiences with the placement of the orchestra on stage and the refined visual elegance that has become Filiberti’s unmistakable artistic hallmark.
Following the highly successful cultural project devoted to the myth of Romeo and Juliet, tracing its evolution from Shakespeare to Gounod, the Teatro Verdi di Trieste now takes on another ambitious challenge: bringing Strauss’s Elektra back to the city for the first time since its last performance in 1978. Performed only three times in Trieste’s history – its first appearance in 1936 making the city the fourth Italian theatre to stage the then-scandalous masterpiece by Strauss and Hofmannsthal – Elektra, together with Salome, represents the summit of Strauss’s so-called Expressionist diptych. Here the doomed daughter of Atreus pushes both the theme of female obsession and its musical expression to their furthest limits, from the celebrated “Agamemnon” name motif to the famous “Elektra chord”. Steeped in the Viennese intellectual climate that produced Freud and Breuer’s Studies on Hysteria and, at its most radical, Otto Weininger’s Sex and Character, Elektra shares the same cultural atmosphere that shaped Trieste’s literature at the dawn of the twentieth century. It stands as a musical embodiment of that extraordinary creative season, which continues to establish the city as one of Italy’s great literary capitals. This is therefore a rare and unmissable event, not least because of the considerable production demands imposed by Strauss’s exceptionally large orchestra – unusual in the operatic repertoire – and by a vast cast requiring voices capable of serving both the music and the text with equal mastery, thus doing full justice to words whose origins stretch from ancient Greek tragedy to the modern age.
In this new Verdi production, Elektra will also offer audiences a number of striking innovations. Strauss’s immense orchestral soundscape will emanate from the stage itself, with orchestra and conductor assuming the role of a Greek chorus, while the dramatic action reaches out into the stalls, drawing the audience into the epic family tragedy of the House of Atreus. The theatre will be enveloped by the grandeur of a ruined classical world, evoking the imagery of Grand Tour painting and recalling the dark legacy of Winckelmann’s murder in Trieste, reimagined through a noir sensibility that perfectly complements Elektra. Conceived by Music Director Enrico Calesso, the project has been developed over more than a year of painstaking work, culminating in the appointment of the Milanese director Marco Filiberti, whose artistic vision makes him the ideal interpreter of this delicate balance of literary, pictorial and musical references, while remaining firmly rooted in an aesthetic of timeless classical elegance. Renowned in both cinema and spoken theatre for uncompromising artistic choices and boldly ambitious productions, Filiberti now makes his operatic debut thanks to the Teatro Verdi, and anticipation is high for the outcome of this innovative undertaking.
The extensive vocal cast is itself the result of a long and meticulous process of artistic research, bringing together internationally acclaimed performers who are among today’s foremost interpreters of this repertoire. Okka von der Damerau, the distinguished mezzo-soprano sought after by conductors including Kirill Petrenko, Daniel Barenboim and Zubin Mehta, will share the role of Klytämnestra with the Serbian-Austrian mezzo-soprano Sanja Anastasia. Elektra will be portrayed by the celebrated soprano Elena Batoukova-Kerl, well known both to Trieste audiences and on many of the world’s leading stages, alternating with Diana Lamar, an acknowledged specialist in the role and in the Strauss repertoire. Chrysothemis will be sung by Simone Schneider, internationally regarded as one of today’s leading interpreters of both Strauss and Wagner, alternating with the Austrian soprano Regina Riel, while the Berlin-born tenor Alexander Schulz will appear in every performance as Aegisth. The long-awaited arrival of Orest will be entrusted to the Russian bass Mikhail Petrenko, long admired by conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Harding and Daniel Barenboim, alternating with the experienced bass-baritone Lars Fosser.
A – Friday 19 June 2026, 8:00 PM
S – Saturday 20 June 2026, 4:00 PM
D – Sunday 21 June 2026, 4:00 PM
C – Friday 26 June 2026, 8:00 PM
B – Saturday 27 June 2026, 6:00 PM
E – Sunday 28 June 2026, 4:00 PM