Fabulous performance of Iphigénie en Tauride at the Seattle Opera

Iphigénie en Tauride (Iphigeneia in Tauris), an opera by Christoph Willibald (von) Gluck in four acts, premiered in Paris on May 18, 1779. The French libretto was written by Nicolas-François Guillard. Although, Gluck produced a German version in 1781, this somewhat altered version has generally been seen as inferior, hence the Paris 1779 version has been the one usually performed and recorded.

Soprano Nuccia Focile (Iphigenia), tenor William Burden (Pylades) and baritone Brett Polegato (Orestes) delivered beautiful and powerful performances. The set, mainly consisting of the temple of Diana with dark red walls, wall torches casting dancing shadows and a long bas-relief, along with simple but highly effective lighting design and colorful costumes, again mostly in deep reds and golds, and the addition of the dreamy sounding harpsichord made this a captivating and thoroughly enjoyable performance.

The much neglected Iphigénie en Tauride premiered in Seattle last weekend to rave reviews. It is a co-production with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, which gave the opera its first American performance in 1916. Following the run at the Seattle Opera, it will travel back to New York (literally in five semi-trailers) and opens at the Met on November 27. As Seattlest put it: It's going to be a hot ticket in Gotham, and we saw it here first.

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