Iphigenie en Tauride by Christoph Willibald Gluck
Telling the Story Straight

Everyone likes a good story - and a good story-teller. Think of Garrison Keillor, or monologuest Spaulding Grey, or humorist Bill Cosby. All three can hold an audience in thrall for hours end. But those three are all undisputed “originals.” What happens when a bunch of story-tellers get hold of the same story? Things get confusing, that’s what.

The trouble is, even the most familiar stories tend to get garbled over time -- like in that old game where you whisper a story to one person, and have them whisper it to another, who repeats it to a third, and so forth, only to wind up with something that bears no resemblance to the original. That doesn’t just happen in party games. It takes place in real life, too, often getting folks in real trouble.

Of course, there’s nothing new about that. Back in ancient Greece, Euripides himself sometimes messed with classic tales, and probably got grief for it, as well. And since then, playwrights, movie-makers, and even composers have had a great time twisting the familiar legends into more marketable forms.

This week on At the Opera, we’ll hear about an example of that. It’s an opera called “Iphiginia on Tauris,” based on the old story of Agamemnon and family -- particularly his daughter, Iphiginia. She’s the one who was sacrificed to the gods, right? Well guess again. In this opera she’s alive and kicking -- and in danger of falling in love with her own brother!

Sound like a situation that needs straightening out? Well, we’ll try, in a consultation with Dr. Victoria Whol, Assistant Professor of Classics at Ohio State University. She’ll help us figure out which version of old Iphiginia’s life story is the right one, or if there really IS a right one. We’ll also talk to Scott Speck, author of Opera for Dummies, about the musical highights of Gluck’s startling drama. It’s all this week on At the Opera, with Lou Santacroce.



Hear Lou's conversation with Dr. Victoria Whol, who explains how the Greeks favored imagination over dogma in interpreting mythology.

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Iphigenie en Tauride by Christoph Willibald Gluck, performed at the Glimmerglass Opera; Jane Glover, conductor. Check it out on NPR World of Opera.

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