GLUCK: Iphigenie en Tauride.(Review)

GLUCK: Iphigenie en Tauride [] Delunsch, Cousin; Keenlyside, Beuron, Naouri; Les Musiciens du Louvre, Minkowski. DG Archiv 471 133-2 (2)

Fans of Gluck's operas have enjoyed a recent feast of stage performances and recordings of Iphigenie en Tauride, and this latest example, under the brilliant direction of Marc Minkowski, might just be the creme de la creme, even with its one serious shortcoming, Mireille Delunsch's rather placid Iphigenie.

Comparing the opening pages of the opera as played here with the other available period-instrument Iphigenie, with Martin Pearlman's Boston Baroque (Telarc), immediately shows the differences between their approaches. Gluck marks the instrumental calm before the storm "Gracieux, un peu lent," and Pearlman's tempo emphasizes the "gracious" side; it's pleasant music to accompany a group of silk-clad aristocrats from a Fragonard painting as they gambol around well-manicured gardens. Minkowski's opening is much slower -- an utterly serene, Eden-like stillness, abruptly broken by the beginning of a storm in the distance. As played by Boston Baroque, the storm is a rather genteel disturbance, as if it knew this was, after all, part of an evening's civilized entertainment. Minkowski's is a force of nature -- with Gluck's orchestral timbres and dynamic markings superbly realized and crystal clear. The racing sixteenth-notes are not just cleanly played, they pulsate with energy and shimmer with instrumental color. At its height, the storm seems to leap ...