From the same creative team that brought Toronto audiences to their feet night after night this past spring with the Canadian Opera Company’s Dora Award-winning production of Orfeo ed Euridice comes the COC’s 2011/2012 season opening production of Christoph Willibald Gluck’s Iphigenia in Tauris. Gluck’s masterpiece has its company premiere with director Robert Carsen at the helm of an emotionally gripping production that features Susan Graham, one of the opera world’s foremost opera stars, making her eagerly anticipated COC debut in the title role. Leading the COC Orchestra and Chorus is Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado, returning to the company after his thrilling debut in last season’s Nixon in China.
“This is why we go to the opera,” said the Globe and Mail of the COC’s Orfeo ed Euridice last May, and director Robert Carsen is poised to deliver again this fall with a production of Iphigenia in Tauris that has already played to great acclaim in Chicago, San Francisco, London and Madrid. Sung in French with English SURTITLES™, Iphigenia in Tauris runs for eight performances at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts on Sept. 22, 25, 28 and Oct. 1, 4, 7, 12, 15, 2011.
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About the Cast and Creative Team
Susan Graham is a leader in the international revival of Gluck’s operas, and one of the world's pre-eminent mezzo-sopranos. Her COC debut follows recent performances as Iphigenia for the Metropolitan Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Teatro Real de Madrid, for which her “molten tone and vivid acting” (Financial Times) as well as “nobility and vibrant vocal beauty” (Chicago Tribune), has been praised in performances described as “poignant and majestic” (Opera News) and “riveting” (New York Times).
Robert Carsen, the acclaimed Toronto-born director, returns to the COC along with other members of the Orfeo ed Euridice creative team, including set and costume designer Tobias Hoheisel and co-lighting designer Peter Van Praet.
Russell Braun, who will sing the role of Iphigenia's brother Orestes, is a frequent COC artist who has also won acclaim for performances at the Metropolitan Opera, l’Opéra national de Paris, Vienna State Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, LA Opera, La Scala and the Salzburg and Glyndebourne festivals.
Joseph Kaiser, another Metropolitan Opera regular who will sing the role of Orestes's best friend Pylades, is a graduate of the COC's Ensemble Studio and starred as Tamino in the Kenneth Branagh film adaptation of The Magic Flute in 2007.
Photos from the Lyric Opera of Chicago production
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Iphigenia in Tauris. Susan Graham (centre) as Iphigenia in the Lyric Opera of Chicago production, 2006. Photo: Dan Rest
Susan Graham (centre) as Iphigenia in the Lyric Opera of Chicago production, 2006. Photo: Dan Rest
A scene from the Lyric Opera of Chicago production, 2006. Photo: Robert Kusel
Susan Graham (centre) as Iphigenia in the Lyric Opera of Chicago production, 2006. Photo: Robert Kusel
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With Iphigenia in Tauris, Gluck had the greatest triumph of his long career, composing a score of refined, classical beauty that lays bare the searing emotions of this Greek tragedy. Facing imminent death at the hand of her own father, Iphigenia is rescued by the goddess Diana and transported to the island of Tauris. She is made a priestess and must sacrifice any stranger who appears on the island. In a tragic twist of fate, one of those victims is her long-lost brother, Orestes. Iphigenia in Tauris is on stage at the Four Seasons Centre Sept. 22 to Oct. 15, 2011.
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