'Iphigenie en Aulide' was the opera with which Gluck set out to conquer the lyric stage in Paris in April 1774. France was the only country to resist the fashion for Italian opera that prevailed everywhere else in civilised Europe in the first half of the 18th century and to develop instead its own national form of serious opera, the tragedie lyrique. As an acknowledged master of theItalian manner, therefore, Gluck's appearance in Paris was bound to be controversial… He had a useful ally in Paris, however, in the person of the newly crowned young queen Marie Antoinette, who had previously, as an Austrian archduchess, been one of his singing pupils at the Viennese court, and could always quell dissent during the long and stormy rehearsals for the new opera by threatening to fetch the queen. In the event the opera was a great success and Gluck quickly became established as the new saviour of French opera, a worthy inheritor of the mantle of Lully and Rameau.

Artists

Jose van Dam (Agamemnon), Anne Sofie von Otter (Clytemnestra), Lynne Dawson (Iphigenie), Bernard Deletré (Patrocle), John Aler (Achille), Gilles Cachemaille (Calchas), René Schirrer (Arcas), Guillemette Laurens (Diane), Ann Monoyios (First Greek Lady/Slave), Isabelle Eschenbrenner (Second Greek Lady), Lynne Dawson (Rezia), Claudine Le Coz (Balkis), Catherine Dubosc (Dardané), Sophie Marin-Degor (Dardané), Sophie Marin-Degor (Amine), Guy de Mey (Ali), Jean-Luc Viala (Osmin), Guy Flechter (Sultan), Jean-Philippe Lafont (Vertigo), Gilles Cachemaille (A Calender), A Calender (Chef de Caravane)

Monteverdi Choir & Orchestre De L’Opera de Lyon, Orchestre de L’Opera de Lyon, English Baroque Soloists, John Eliot Gardiner