ELEKTRA 2024 by Rolf Alme – Kristiania University College, Oslo, Norway

The Greek tragedy “Elektra” is the story of the young woman Elektra, who is filled with hatred towards her own mother, Clytemnestra, because she killed Elektra’s father, Agamemnon. (But Clytemnestra killed her own husband as punishment because he sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia to get better wind for his war fleet…)

“Elektra” is one of the first records of blood vengeance, and the tragedy shows how destructive hatred and revenge are for us humans. I have condensed the story and painted the violence in clear images. The violence is used as a compositional element.

After the main story, I let Elektra and her brother Orestes kill themselves as the fulfillment of revenge takes away their entire life’s purpose.

Then, I juxtapose “Elektra” with a description of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. This text is deliberately kept in a sober narrative style and is meant to serve as a formal break. It’s as if one suddenly reads from a newspaper article. However, towards the end, one understands the connection with the Elektra text.

Then there are two text fragments from my piece “Caligula 2.0”: “WAR” is an emotional description of the war in Ukraine, and “PUTIN” is a text that Vladimir Putin delivers at the moment of his death. It is like a long death aria from an opera, attempting to explain his actions as a consequence of being raised in a society rooted in terror, death camps, and violence.