Iphigénie en Tauride

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Work data
Title: Iphigenia on Tauris
Original title: Iphigénie en Tauride
Title page of the score, Paris 1779

Title page of the score, Paris 1779

Shape: “Tragedy” in four acts
Original language: French
Music: Christoph Willibald Gluck ,
2) together with Johann Baptist von Alxinger
Libretto : Nicolas François Guillard
Literary source: Claude Guimond de La Touche:
Iphigénie en Tauride
Premiere: 1) May 18, 1779
2) October 23, 1781
Place of premiere: 1) Paris Opera
2) Burgtheater Vienna
Playing time: approx. 2 ½ hours
Place and time of the action: Tauris, after the end of the Trojan War
people
  • Iphigénie / Iphigenie , daughter of Agamemnon and Klytämnestras , high priestess of the Temple of Diana on Tauris ( soprano )
  • Thoas , King of the Scythians (first version: bass , second version: deep bass)
  • Oreste / Orest , Iphigénie's brother (first version: bass, second version: tenor )
  • Pylade / Pylades , Greek prince, friend of Orestes ( Haute-Contre )
  • two priestesses (2 sopranos)
  • Diane / Diana (soprano)
  • a Skythe (first version: bass, second version: tenor)
  • a servant of the sanctuary (bass)
  • four priestesses (2 sopranos and 2 old men from the choir)
  • Greeks, priestesses, Eumenids, people of the Scythians, Thoas guard ( choir )
  • Guard of the Temple (extras)
  • Scythians, Eumenids, the shadow of Clytemnestras (ballet)

Iphigénie en Tauride (German: Iphigenie auf Tauris ) is an opera (according to the score, Tragédie ) in four acts by Christoph Willibald Gluck , which was premiered at the Paris Opera in 1779 . The libretto in French comes from Nicolas François Guillard and is based on the tragedy Iphigénie en Tauride by Claude Guimond de La Touche , which in turn is based on the drama Iphigenie with the Taurern ( Greek  Ἰφιγένεια ἐν Ταύροις ) by the classical poet Euripides from 414/412 BC. Processed. The plot of the opera takes up a material from Greek mythology and takes place in the time after the end of the Trojan War . The focus is on the fate of the children of Agamemnon .

action

first act

The first scene takes place in the entrance hall of the Temple of Diana on the island of Tauris. (The Greek Artemis of the ancient material is consistently addressed in the libretto in her Interpretatio Romana as Diana.) A storm is raging, the sea at the foot of the temple is stormy. Iphigenia is the high priestess of Diana and prays with her priestesses for a calming of the storm. She was abducted by Diana to Tauris fifteen years ago after her father Agamemnon wanted to offer her as a sacrifice. Although the storm subsides, Iphigenie remains troubled. She tells the priestesses of a dream in which her mother Clytaimnestra appeared, who had Iphigenie's father Agamemnon murdered. Iphigénie herself had also committed a terrible deed in a dream: she stabbed her brother Orestes to save a stranger.

In the second scene, King Thoas joins his guards. A bad omen appeared to him; he fears for his life. In order to keep the curse of the gods away, a human sacrifice is to be offered according to the old custom : All castaways who are stranded on Tauris are to be sacrificed to Diana. In the third scene, the Scythians rush in, who have captured two stranded Greeks who are about to be sacrificed. Iphigénie, full of foreboding, and the priestesses resign.

In the fourth scene Thoas asks the Scythians to tune the gods into the mood for the sacrifice with a warlike song. The Scythians answer with the chorus “Blood alone can turn divine anger” ( French “  Il nous fallait du sang pour expier nos crimes  ” ). In the fifth scene Orestes and Pylades are shown defiantly. Thoas condemns both to death.

Second act

Orestes and Pylades meet Iphigenia in Tauris ( vase painting from the 4th century BC)

In the first scene, Oreste and Pylades find themselves tied up in a room in the temple that is intended for the victims. The friends lament their fate, but assure themselves of their loyalty. In the second scene, an overseer of the sanctuary and the temple guard appear and continue pylades against the protests of both.

In the third scene Orestes, who was left alone, asks the gods to kill him in order to put an end to his torments of conscience. Only in exhaustion does he find peace, after the aria “Peace returns to my heart!” (“  Le calme rentre dans mon cœur!  ”) He falls asleep. In the fourth scene, Orestes appears in his sleep, the Eumenids , three goddesses of vengeance, who are also called Erinyes. The Eumenids torment Orestes with their demands for vengeance: “No mercy! He is a matricide! ”(“  Point de grâce, il a tué sa mère!  ”). Orestes asks for mercy in his sleep, but does not wake up.

In the fifth scene Iphigenia appears, but she does not recognize her brother. Orestes withholds his name and reports on the fate of her family: Agamemnon was insidiously murdered by Clytaimnestra, whereupon the son killed his mother in order to avenge his father. Orestes claims that the avenging son, himself, also found death, only Elektra remained behind. After Orestes has been led away, Iphigenie laments their fate in the sixth scene in chorus with the priestesses: "O let me cry the deeply stooped" («  Ô malheureuse Iphigénie!  ») - Choir: "Our misery is as great as yours." ( «  Mêlons nos cris plaintifs à ses gémissements!  »)

Third act

The third act takes place in the rooms of Iphigenie. In the first scene, Iphigenia and the priestesses decide to free one of the two prisoners. The freedman is supposed to flee to Greece to teach Elektra about her sister's fate. She chooses Orestes, whose features remind her of her brother. In the second scene, Orestes and Pylades are led in. After the priestesses have left, Iphigenia makes her proposal in the third scene. But neither of the two friends wants to live instead of the other: Orestes asks for the release of Pylades, while Pylades pleads for the life of Orestes. Iphigenia chooses Orestes as planned.

In the fourth scene Orestes and Pylades are alone. Orestes tries to convince Pylades that the survivor would carry a heavier burden than the doomed man. Therefore the decision to flee and against human sacrifice is the true service of friendship. Orestes: “How! Can't I overcome this cruelty? ”(“  Quoi! Je ne vaincrai pas ta constance funeste?  ”) - Pylades:“ O my Orestes, have pity on the friend! ”(“  Ah! Mon ami, j'implore ta pitié!  »)

Iphigenia and the priestesses come back in the fifth scene. Orestes threatens suicide if his insistence on the release of Pylades is not complied with. He himself deserves no pity because of his guilt. Finally, Iphigenia has Orestes taken away, hands Pylades a letter to Elektra in the sixth scene and releases him. In the seventh scene, Pylades decides to free Orestes with the help of Greeks living on Tauris: “I will save Orestes, otherwise I will hurry to my death!” (“  Je vais sauver Oreste ou courir au trépas.  ”)

Fourth act

The fourth act takes place in the Diana Temple, a statue of the goddess and the sacrificial altar are visible. Iphigenia is alone in the first scene and struggles with her fate. She asks the goddess for courage and hardening of her will so that she can perform the hated sacrificial service to Orestes: “I beseech you and tremble, O goddess full of anger, fill my breast with gloomy cruelty.” (“  Je t'implore et je tremble, ô Déesse implacable! Dans le fond de mon cœur mets la férocité.  »)

In the second scene the priestesses bring in Orestes, who is decorated as a sacrifice. With chants - "Chaste daughter of Latone , note our song of grace!" ("  Chaste fille de Latone, prête l'oreille à nos chants!  ") - they lead him to the altar. When Iphigenia is already raising the knife, her brother calls out: "O Iphigenia, O dear sister, you too were once sacrificed in Aulis!" ("  Iphigenie, aimable sœur! C'est ainsi qu'autrefois tu péris en Aulide!  ") , a reference to the sacrifice of Iphigenia by her father Agamemnon before Aulis , as a result of which Artemis raptured Iphigenia and brought it to Tauris. Now the siblings recognize each other, but their joy lasts only briefly: In the third scene a Greek woman rushes in and reports about the approaching King Thoas.

In the fourth scene, Thoas enters the temple with his guards, furious. He asks Iphigenia to make the sacrifice to Orestes. This reveals to him that he is calling for fratricide. Thoas threatens to kill Orestes with his own hands when Pylades storms in with a group of Greeks in the fifth scene. Pylades kills Thoas. A battle breaks out between the Scythians: “Let us avenge the king's death with blood! Strike! ”(“  Vengeons le sang de notre roi! Frappons!  ”) And the Greeks:“ Let us wipe the brood of the Scythians, destroy them and their last seed! ”(“  De ce peuple odieux exterminons jusqu'au moindre reste .  »)

In the sixth scene, the goddess Diana comes down to the fighting. She describes the human sacrifice as the desecration of her temple and orders an end to the slaughter. Orestes is also forgiven for his guilt. The Greeks are supposed to bring Diana's altar back to Greece along with her likeness. In the seventh scene, the Greeks and Scythians make peace, in the final chorus they praise the good phrase together with the priestesses: “Our happiness was long denied, now the gods have been reconciled.” (“  Les Dieux, longtemps en courroux, ont accompli leurs oracle .  »)

orchestra

The orchestral line-up for the opera includes the following instruments:

Work history

The opera dates from Gluck's time in Paris . In a contract with the Paris Opera Management he had committed to six operas, Iphigénie en Tauride was the fifth. Before that came Iphigénie en Aulide and Orphée et Euridice (both premiered in 1774), Alceste (1776) and Armide (1777).

The Iphigénie en Tauride fabric was popular at the time. In the hundred years before 1779 at least five tragedies and thirteen operas about the siblings Iphigenia and Orestes had appeared on Tauris. The best known are the sketch Iphigénie en Tauride by Racine (published 1674), the tragedy Oreste et Pylade by François Joseph de Lagrange-Chancel (1697), whose transfer The Siblings in Tauria (later Orest and Pylades ) by Johann Elias Schlegel (1737) and the stage play Iphigénie en Tauride by Claude Guimond de La Touche (1757). The arrangements for the opera include Oreste by Georg Friedrich Händel (UA 1734), Ifigenia in Tauride by Tommaso Traetta (1763), Ifigenia in Tauride by Gian Francesco de Majo (1764) and Ifigenia in Tauride by Niccolò Jommelli (1771). Of these, the Traetta Opera and the La Touche tragedy were great successes.

There were only six weeks between the world premieres of Goethe's play Iphigenie auf Tauris (April 6, 1779 in Weimar ) and Gluck's opera (May 18, 1779 in Paris ). Goethe and Gluck, who had not met, seem to have turned to the subject independently of one another. However, in 1776 Gluck had requested an elegy for his deceased niece and then asked Klopstock and then Wieland . Wieland passed the order on to Goethe, who then sketched a cantata for Gluck, which the literary scholar Gero von Wilpert considers to be the core of Gluck's Iphigénie (or his Proserpina ). What is certain is that Goethe wrote his Iphigenia shortly before the premiere, when Gluck's libretto had already been determined in detail. The connections between the two works are more likely to be sought in the Enlightenment , even if there are some similarly designed scenes: In both pieces Orestes already experienced a premonition of redemption early on (Gluck: Act II, third scene), and the Eumenids are no external agents of morality, but internal furies of the guilty psyche. As such, they appear in sleep (Gluck: II.4).

Recordings (selection)

Recordings of Iphigenie en Tauride exist in double digits. The following selection is limited to recordings that are recommended as defining in current opera guides:

Film recordings of the opera:

literature

  • Carl Dahlhaus : "Ethos and pathos in Gluck's 'Iphigenie auf Tauris'". In: Die Musikforschung , Vol. 27 (1974), ISSN  0027-4801 , pp. 289-300.
  • Klaus Hortschansky : “Christoph Willibald Gluck: Iphigénie en Tauride. The Invention of Musical Classicism ”. In: Hans-Joachim Hinrichsen , Laurenz Lütteken (Hrsg.): Masterpieces heard again. A small canon of music, 14 portraits of works . Bärenreiter, Kassel 2004, pp. 81-104.
  • Ulrich Konrad : Gluck's drama out of Wagner's mind in Strauss' hands. The adaptation of the tragédie opera Iphigénie en Taueide . In: Sebastian Bolz, Adrian Kech and Hartmut Schick (Eds.): Richard Strauss. The composer and his work. Tradition, interpretation, reception (= Munich publications on music history. Vol. 77). Munich 2017, pp. 399–422.

Web links

Commons : Iphigénie en Tauride  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Klaus Hortschansky : Iphigénie en Tauride. In: Piper's Encyclopedia of Musical Theater . Volume 2: Works. Donizetti - Henze. Piper, Munich / Zurich 1987, ISBN 3-492-02412-2 , pp. 457-465.
  2. ↑ a b Jane K. Brown: Orpheus, Orlando, Orest, or: the hero of Goethe's Iphigenia . In: Udo Bermbach , Hans Rudolf Vaget (Hrsg.): Baptized on music: Festschrift for Dieter Borchmeyer . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2006, ISBN 3-8260-3398-1 , pp. 55-66.
  3. ^ Matthew Boyden: The Rough Guide to Opera. Third edition. Rough Guides, London 2002, ISBN 1-85828-749-9 , p. 86.