Saturday 21 August 2010

16.00 - 17.00

Gallery Music Event

Christoph Willibald Gluck: Iphigénie en Tauride

This performance coincides with the Glyndebourne event taking place in the courtyard of Somerset House over the weekend of 20 - 22 August.

Acts III and IV of Iphigénie en Tauride will be semi-staged in the gallery with reference to works currently on display and introduced with brief discussions bridging Gluck’s history, the context of the Grand Tour, and The Courtauld’s collections.


Free with admission. Limited seating available on a first come first served basis.


detail from Lely's Concert



CAST

Iphigénie: Emilie Alford

Orestes: Christopher Jacklin

Pilades: Oliver Johnston

Toas: Edmund Saddington

High Priestesses: Danae Eleni and Katy Crompton


FEATURING

The International Baroque Players


WITH

Alisdair Kitchen: Conductor

Joseph Timmons: Director

Sophie Stoddard: Staging

Speaker: Dr Charlotte de Mille


The last decades of the 18th century saw significant operatic commissions and extensive collecting in Britain: Queen Charlotte’s patronage of G. F. Handel, the purchase of the core of the Royal Collection by George III in 1763, the foundation of the British Museum and the extensive employment of Italian craftsmen. Christoph Wilibald Gluck was at the heart of European travel so indulged in during the century. In Iphigénie en Tauride, he incorporates many motifs from his earlier works to provide a summation of his own travels and knowledge, perfectly reflecting this remarkable cultural exchange.


Iphigénie en Tauride has been regarded Gluck’s last masterpiece and was the last opera he composed for his ex-pupil, the French Queen Consort Marie Antoinette. Premiered in Paris on 8 May 1779, its dramatic power is demonstrative of the progressive reforms in opera that Gluck had instigated throughout his career. Here, he combines careful attention to the libretto (Nicholas-Francois Guillard) with musical and visual components to present a work driven by narrative sentiment, even at the expense of the expectations of compositional form.


This presentation of eighteenth century opera coincides with Glyndebourne’s screening of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress (1951) in the courtyard of Somerset House. Stravinsky wrote his opera as pastiche on Grand Tour practices, taking inspiration from William Hogarth’s 1733 series.


For more information about Glyndebourne at Somerset House click here

 

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