Graun: Iphigenia in Aulis

barockwerk hamburg, Hochman, Ira

CPO 555 475-2

Iphigenia with barockwerk hamburg

For years, barockwerk hamburg has enjoyed great popularity, especially for the revival of previously unpublished works from Hamburg's musical history. Now the ensemble has recorded "Iphigenia in Aulis" by Carl Heinrich Graun after the libretto arrangement by Georg Caspar Schürmann for cpo. The story of the king's daughter Iphigenia, who is to be sacrificed by her father Agamemnon, is one of the classic tragedies of Greek antiquity that continues to inspire the theater to ever new interpretations. At the age of just 24, Carl Heinrich Graun also became enthusiastic about the material and composed "Iphigenia in Aulis" 290 years ago. His youthfully fresh and colorful music was last heard on the stage of Hamburg's Gänsemarkt Opera in 1731. The work centers on Iphigenia's voluntary and selfless sacrifice in times of social crisis. Fatherly love and royal duty, loyalty and betrayal, irony and intrigue, and a wedding as the final chord provide all the ingredients for an opulent and varied baroque opera. Although the surviving manuscripts unfortunately lack the music for all the recitatives, the three choruses, the final entrance of Diana with all the participants, and the final chorus, there is enough highly inspiring music, including the overture, as well as 35 arias, and it would be more than a pity to let this extensive work continue to lie unperformed in the archives.

Soloists: Hanna Zumsande, Santa Karnite, Geneviève Tschumi, Terry Wey, Mirko Ludwig, Andreas Heinemeyer, Dominik Wörner

CD

CPO

5.06.2023

761203547524