Music: ElelHra's Return

Metropolitan Opera's Rudolf Bing ticked off the reasons for hauling Richard Strauss's Elektra out of 13-year storage, and found them ample. Opera fans, in the house and in the radio audience, had already shown a fondness for Strauss's lurid Salome. The set for Elektra, designed in 1932, was not too bad, and he had a good cast and a first-class Strauss conductor, Fritz Reiner. Moreover, after hearing Soprano Astrid Varnay in a concert version in Carnegie Hall two years ago, Bing knew he had an Elektra.

Last week even Met goers already inured to Salome got a jolting reminder of how much...

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