Iphigénie en Tauride (Campra)

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Iphigénie en Tauride (English: Iphigeneia in Tauris) is an opera by the French composers Henri Desmarets and André Campra. It takes the form of a tragédie en musique in a prologue and five acts. The libretto is by Joseph-François Duché de Vancy with additions by Antoine Danchet. Desmarets had begun work on the opera around 1696 but abandoned it when he was forced to go into exile in 1699. Campra and his regular librettist Danchet took up the piece and wrote the prologue, most of Act Five, two arias in Act One, an aria for Acts Two and Three, and two arias for the fourth act. The plot is ultimately based on Euripides' tragedy Iphigeneia in Tauris.

[edit] Performance history

Iphigénie was first performed at the Académie royale de musique on 6 May 1704 with Marie-Louise-Antoinette Desmatins as Iphigénie, Françoise Journet as Électre and Gabriel-Vincent Thévenard as Oreste. It was coolly received at first, but enjoyed several revivals in the 18th century, the last being in 1762.

[edit] Sources

• The Viking Opera Guide ed. Holden (Viking, 1993)
• Le magazine de l'opéra baroque
• Amadeus Almanac