Gluck's Iphigenie en Tauride

Published: April 6, 2014, 1 p.m.

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Lucie Skeaping looks at the music from Gluck's fifth operatic masterpiece, Iphig\\xe9nie en Tauride - based on Euripides' play, and first performed in Paris in 1779.

With Iphig\\xe9nie, Gluck took his operatic reform to its logical conclusion. The recitatives are shorter and accompanied by strings and other instruments (not just traditional continuo). The normal dance movements found in earlier French trag\\xe9die en musique are almost entirely absent. The drama is ultimately based on the play Iphigenia in Tauris by the ancient Greek dramatist Euripides which deals with stories concerning the family of Agamemnon in the aftermath of the Trojan War.

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