Abstract:
This article provides a comprehensive study and analysis of the opera. It refers back to the source plays by Euripides and Racine, discusses the structure and form of the opera, and provides an interpretation, drawing at times on the insights of Pierre Audi in his pioneering modern-dress production for De Nederlandse Opera, released on DVD in 2013. The principal aims of this study are to establish that the libretto is very far from being an inferior adaptation of Racine’s Iphigénie (as has often been claimed); and to argue a view of the opera’s central concerns and of Gluck’s setting which does justice to the intensity and dramatic power of his music.