It’s the only Iphigénie in town

Claus Guth’s 2001 Zürich production of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride is, rather surprisingly, the only video recording of the work currently available.  Fortunately it’s a very decent production much preferable to the Met’s over-stuffed overly literal version but not, I think, to be preferred over Robert Carsen’s stark and elegant version seen in Toronto, Washington and elsewhere.  The Zürich performance, led by William Christie, is very good but it’s rather let down by the video direction and the production for DVD.

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Orlando in Craiglockhart

Handel’s Orlando is pretty classic opera seria stuff.  It’s based on an episode in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso.  Orlando, a great soldier in Charlemagne’s army has lost his ardour for military glory because he has fallen desperately in love with the pagan princess Angelica, who is in turn in love with another man, Medoro. Orlando cannot accept this and he is driven to madness, prevented from causing absolute carnage only by the magician Zoroastro (who eventually restores his sanity).  There’s also a shepherdess, Dorinda, who is also in love with Medoro, but comes to accept her lot.  It’s all a bit daft and screams for a strong production concept.  In his 2008 Zürich production Jens-Daniel Herzog finds one.  He relocates the action to a military psychiatric hospital during, or just after, WW1.  Orlando is suffering from battle fatigue or PTSD and Zoroastro is a psychiatrist.  Angelica is still a princess but Dorinda has become a nurse.  It all works rather well.

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