Orest

Manfred Trojahn’s Orest enjoyed its world premiere in Amsterdam amid spectacular splashes of gore and commensurate splatters of sound. The Netherlands Opera commissioned Trojahn’s sixth opera to end a series that has focused on the House of Atreus, rounding off the cycle of violence by adding the murder of Helen of Troy to the carnage surrounding Iphigenie, Idomeneo and Elektra. Trojahn has written his own libretto, based on Euripides and is narrative follows the Greek story closely, but he skirts around Apollo’s apotheosis of Helen, preferring to leave behind a pool of blood and a number of open questions. Perhaps the subject matter, with its myriad musical and literary allusions, steered Trojahn towards a harmonic language more rooted in the past than he might otherwise have adopted. Certainly Strauss’s influence is amply audible.