Ten years before the French Revolution, Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera impressed audiences with its humanistic persuasiveness. This interpretation brings into focus precisely what the text and music convey to us. The classical hymn to humanity is transformed into a stage narrative of a painful resolution of severe traumas. The entire plot is presented from the perspective of the title character. It is Iphigenia’s self-liberation from the seemingly inescapable constraints of patriarchal violence.
The action takes place in a claustrophobic setting, in a small room on stage, a structure of stacked cells in which the protagonist is virtually imprisoned and from which she eventually frees herself, her brother Orestes, and his friend Pylades through compassion and self-determined action.
musical direction André de Ridder / direction and light design Caterina Cianfarini / dramaturgy Heiko Voss / scenography Sammy Van den Heuvel / costume design Karoline Gundermann