In the aftermath of the Trojan War, the priestess Iphigénie is tasked to kill any strangers who land on Scythia’s shores. But as Fate would have it, her brother Oreste is the first to be shipwrecked on the peninsula and brought to the sacrificial altar.The priestess believes her brother to be dead and responsible for the death of their mother. Oreste in turn believes that Iphigénie had been sacrificed to the goddess Diana by their father Agamemnon in return for favorable winds. The siblings fail to recognize each other yet Iphigénie feels a strange kinship with the ill-fated stranger. She wishes to spare him, but Oreste—driven mad by grief and guilt over his family’s compounding tragedy—welcomes death. Will they discover the truth before it is too late?
Showcasing the transition from baroque to classical opera, Christoph Gluck reimagines Euripides’ great Greek drama and reignites it in true operatic form.
 
These performances are sponsored in part by The Gailliot Fund.