✭✭✭✭✩

by Christoph Willibald Gluck,

directed by Marshall Pynkoski

Opera Atelier, Elgin Theatre, Toronto

October 31-November 7, 2009

Opera Atelier has taken a brave step in remounting its controversial production of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride (1779).   In essence, the company is saying that the views of a few uninformed critics will not prevent it from presenting one of the great masterpieces of opera.  Back in 2003 when OA unveiled Iphigénie, some objected that director Marshall Pynkoski had played to contemporary tastes by making the friendship of Oreste and Pylade too homoerotic.  Read your Greek mythology, learn that intense same-sex friendships in classical and neoclassical times were free to stray beyond the platonic, just listen to (or read) what is sung and you’ll realize Pynkoski is simply being true to the story and its characters.

Oreste (Kresimir Spicer) and Pylade (Tom Macleay), who vowed lifelong love before a god (see Lucian’s Amores 47), are shipwrecked in Tauris where the Scythian king Thoas (Olivier Laquerre) has decreed death to all foreigners.  The high priestess Iphigénie (Peggy Kriha Dye), persuades Thoas to sacrifice only one.  This only exacerbates the problem since each of the men so loves the other he is willing to die so the other might live.  We realize, though the fact is unknown to the characters, that when Oreste is chosen, Iphigénie will have to kill her own brother.

Gluck aimed to reform 18th-century opera by compelling all elements of the work to serve dramatic story-telling.  From the extraordinarily vivid storm music at the beginning, Gluck whips up tension that never lets up but instead is channelled into the interior turmoil of the characters.  Under conductor Andrew Parrott the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra admirably convey the urgency and modernity of this gripping score.  Spicer with his heroically ringing voice creates a powerful portrait of a man driven to the brink of madness.  Macleay’s beautifully warm tone is an ideal complement, finely delineating the stability Oreste depends on.  OA favourite Dye delivers another gracefully nuanced performance.  It’s too bad the normally resilient Laquerre seemed to be under the weather.

Gluck’s demand that dance be fully integrated into the action has meant his revolutionary works are seldom staged.  Toronto should be grateful to have a company that not only recognizes Gluck’s genius but is able to make it thrill us as much as it did his contemporaries.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: A version of this review appeared in Eye Weekly 2009-11-03.

Photo: Kresimir Spicer and Thomas Macleay. ©Bruce Zinger.