A sensational week for opera: sensationally good and sensationally bad

It’s been a sensational week for opera in London, with a sensationally good performance of Strauss’s Elektra at the Royal Opera, and a sensationally terrible production of Fidelio at English National Opera. Charles Edwards’s production of Elektra is revived for the second time, but this is quite the finest account of it, thanks above all to the conducting of Andris Nelsons and the assumption of the title role by Christine Goerke. This opera can, and usually does, remind me of lying on the road under a deafening drill, and reinforces my admiration for the tact with which Wagner places his climaxes. Nelsons, having dealt a hefty blow with the first chords, then managed the dynamics with extraordinary skill, providing plenty of respites both for the singers and the audience. Not, I suspect, that Goerke needs respites. She has a huge voice, absolutely steady throughout its range, and she seems one of those artists, like Astrid Varnay and Birgit Nilsson, who is destined for or doomed to this role.