Opera Note: Seattle Iphigénie

Seems like everybody is doing Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauridethis year. Seattle: (link). It opened in San Francisco last spring (link) Barrie Kosky offers a quantly relevant rendering at the Komische (sic) opera in Berlin (link). There was a run last month in London (link), and they are hawking tickets for Paris for next spring (link).

We’ve seen two: the San Francisco last month, and the Seattle, just this weekend. I’ll give my vote to Seattle. It’s a more traditional staging and the cast is not so famous (nor, I assume so high priced). But it’s a marvel of good direction and careful thought: just about every note, you had the feel the singer knew what s/he was doing, and why. In the title role, Nuccia Focile offers an instrument that isn’t quite world-class, but forget about it: she’s careful and impassioned and she milks it for every ounce of emotion. As the main men in the story, Brett Polegato and William Burden show the kind of emotional connection you expect from male duos in Verdi. You’re never quite sure who deserves the credit for the overall high quality of a production like this (aside from everybody), but I suppose you’d have to give the palm to the director, Stephen Wadsworth (link).

San Francisco version was admirable in its way. The modernist setting I could take or leave; the singing was certainly strong enough, but the overall tone was “introspective” which in this case, I think, means “murky.”

Seattle Opera is all hubba hubba over the fact that their Iphigénie is a co-production with the Met, where it will open next month—same staging, but different cast (including, as if to complete the circle, the title role going to Susan Graham, who sang it in San Francisco). Well they might be excited; this is some kind of first for the Met, whose stage is so huge that its productions virtually never travel. Seattle is a pretty big stage itself; it would be interesting to see if they loosen up the set even more for the big time (no, we won’t be going; two is enough).

For a good backgrounder, go here (link). NYT 1916 review (link).