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Gluck: Iphigenie en Tauride -- Zurich Opera
Background Information: Gluck Christoph Willibald Gluck was a German composer. He is seen as one of the most important opera composers of the Classical music era & is particularly remembered for the opera Orfeo ed Euridice, the best known part of which is probably the Dance of the Blessed Spirits, a slow, soft melody for flute & orchestra. Gluck was born in Erasbach, Upper Palatinate, Bavaria, Germany to a forester in the service of a nobleman. He studied music & philosophy in Prague from the age of eighteen. He wrote his first opera, Artaserse in 1741 & began to compose very prolifically for the stage. His works at this time were quite conservative Italian opera seria. He began to travel widely across Europe & in 1754 he secured the post of Kapellmeister to Maria Theresa of Austria & settled in Vienna. In 1756, Pope Benedict XIV knighted Gluck & awarded him the Order of the Golden Spur. From that time on, Gluck used the title Ritter von Gluck or Chevalier de Gluck. While in Vienna, Gluck composed Orfeo ed Euridice, one of his best known works & the ballet Don Juan. Background Information: Iphigenie En Tauride Iphigénie en Tauride is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck in four acts. The French libretto was written by Nicolas-François Guillard. It was first performed in Paris on May 18, 1779. Two years later, in 1781, as his last work for the stage, Gluck produced a German version of the opera, Iphigenia auf Tauris, for the visit of the Russian Grand Duke Paul to Vienna, with the libretto translated & adapted by Johann Baptist von Alxinger in collaboration with the composer. However, this somewhat altered version has generally been seen as inferior to the 1779 Paris version, which has been the version usually performed & recorded. With Iphigénie, Gluck took his operatic reform to its logical conclusion. There are no longer any recitatives, only dramatic scenes interspersed with arioso -like structures. The drama is based on the play Iphigeneia in Tauris by the ancient Greek dramatist Euripides which deals with Greek mythological stories concerning the family of Agamemnon in the aftermath of the Trojan War. Everything about ArtHaus Gluck DVD looks & sounds positively superb, thoroughly professional & very inspired. The opera itself, the opera reformer Glucks second to last, premiered in 1779, is a masterpiece, a unique & infinitely ambitious blending of music & action, grand emotions & lovely textures. What is always just about to let this whole thing down is the staging by director Claus Guth. Luckily his set designer has an almost uncanny knack for the beauty of the big picture, so it is almost possible to overlook Guths infantilist reading. Nothing ever turns out more trite than when someone who has hardly read a book from cover to cover sets out to interpret according to some Readers Digest vulgarisation of Freudianism. The main characters of this Iphigénie are given alter egos, ids as it were, in the form of huge masks that live out the real passions of the characters. It is all very Prussian & heavy ... & plain silly. But DVD director Thomas Grimm somehow manages to make even Mr. Guth look good. The DVD is tautly edited, & the choice of images is always right on the spot, with a wide variety of shots. Musically of course, this Iphigénie cannot be faulted. William Christie in the pit is an absolute wonder, it is obvious how he loves this music, & the strings have that Baroque sheen to them that I love about anything else. Maybe Juliette Galstian in the title part is not quite yet the well-rounded, resplendent Iphigénie that she will certainly become, but American baritone Rodney Gilfry triumphantly carves out a central place for himself as Orestes, rich in timbre, steely of voice, & wonderful in his acting as always. Its like that man can do no wrong, how come he has never become the superstar his talents seem to promise? Biography: William Christie William Lincoln Christie is a conductor & harpsichordist. He was born in Buffalo, New York & studied art history at Harvard & music at Yale. His teachers included Ralph Kirkpatrick & Kenneth Gilbert. He moved to France in 1971 & became known for his interpretations of Baroque music, particularly French Baroque music. In 1979 he founded Les Arts Florissants, an ensemble devoted to Baroque music. He has also taught at the Paris Conservatoire.
Editors Choice: Handel, Hercules, Gluck, Iphigenie En Tauride, Rameau, View DVDology
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