Opera Plots I - MDC Faculty Home Pages

priestess in a strange land. The mists thereupon gather around the entranced and worshipping
Iphigenia, and she is borne away by the goddess, who is thus appeased, a favourable wind having
now arisen. The warriors, therefore, prepare to embark, and the opera closes with their song of
praise.
57 IPHIGENIA IN TAURIS
Grand Opera in Four Acts By Christoph Willibald Gluck
Libretto By Guillard
First Produced Paris, 1779
Chief Characters Iphigenia, Orestes, Pylades, Thoas
THIS opera forms the finale to" Iphigenia in Aulis," the scene being laid in Tauris, where
Iphigenia has been installed as High Priestess of the temple by the goddess Diana, who bore her
away in triumph from the sacrificial altar of Aulis. Here, for fifteen years, she has served the
savage Tauri, or Scythians, and has been compelled to offer up for them human sacri-fices from
time to timethough many times she has succeeded in saving the lives of the intended victims.
When the opera opens, Iphigenia is lamenting because she has been commanded by Thoas, King
of the Scythians, to offer as a sacrifice two strangers who have been captured upon the shores it
being the custom of the barbarous Tauri to so treat all aliens. Although she knows it not, one of the
strangers is her own brother, Orestes, who had been seeking refuge in this wild land, after slaying
his mother, Clytemnestra, as an act of justice for her complicity in the murder of her husband,
Agamemnon, by her lover, Aegisthus; and the other victim is his friend, Pylades. Learning,
however, that they are Greeks, she determines to save alive one of them, if possible, so that he
may carry messages for her to her home, and when Orestes thereupon begs her to let his friend be
the liberated one, she agrees. Pylades is theref ore allowed to depart in secret, and then Iphigenia
tries vainly to prepare herself for the terrible task of offering up the remaining victim. His gallant
bearing, however, unnerves her, so that it requires a mighty effort for her to even raise the sacrificial
knife; and when, at that moment, Orestes makes himself known to her, she flings down the
weapon, and gladly greets him as her brother. At this moment the barbarian king, Thoas, comes in
person to see if his command has been carried out, having already been told that one of the
strangers has been allowed to depart by the Priestess; and though Iphigenia now pleads
passionately for the victim to be spared, since she has discovered him to be her own brother, the
King furiously refuses her request, declaring that she herself shall also be sacrificed at the same
time, to atone for her guilt in permitting one of the victims to depart. Iphigenia is in despair; but
assistance at this moment arrives by the return of Pylades, who has found his followers and
brought them to the aid of his friend. Pylades slays Thoas, and his followers engage with the
enraged Tauri; and the Greeks are enabled to gain the victory by the timely assistance of the
goddess Diana, who again appears. She pronounces her forgiveness of Orestes for his deed of
violence against his erring mother, since he has shown repentance; and she permits him to return
to Mycenae, and to take with him his sister Iphigenia, whom she now releases from further
services as High Priestess.
58.ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE