Erinys

Outside the palace in Mycenae: Clytemnestra proclaims that Troy has fallen. Agamemnon, the Greek commander-in-chief, returns home, bringing with him the Trojan king’s daughter Cassandra as one of the spoils of war. Clytemnestra greets her spouse and duplicitously invites him to enter the palace. Cassandra then raises her voice and all that can be discerned is that she is speaking of catastrophe and nemesis. Screams can be heard from inside the palace. Clytemnestra appears, before her the dead bodies of Agamemnon and Cassandra. She confesses to having committed regicide: this was revenge for Agamemnon’s previous sacrifice of her daughter Iphigenia. Clytemnestra crowns her beloved Aegisthus as king.
Ten months later. Agamemnon’s daughter Electra laments the still unatoned murder. A stranger arrives who announces himself as Electra’s long-lost brother Orestes and claims that he intends to kill Aegisthus. A blind man warns Orestes of Electra’s thirst for power. The inebriated Aegisthus comes out of the palace. The news that Orestes has fallen sends him into a state of ecstasy. At this moment, Electra stabs Aegisthus. Orestes also raises his knife to kill Clytamnestra, hesitates, but is persuaded by Electra to kill their mother. Electra crowns Orestes as king, but while the masses are exulting, the blind man prophesises that this misdeed will only bring renewed disaster. Orestes is driven insane: he believes that he can hear the voice of his mother who has set the spirits of revenge upon him...