Gluck‘s wonderful but neglected 1774 opera, inspired by the Greek legend, is treated with forceful and convincing simplicity in Klaus Guth‘s revolutionary production staged in at the Opernhaus Zürich. The psychological drama in a tense atmosphere of fears and traumas is underlined by Guth‘s use of huge masks and enclosed spaces. As Guth himself puts it: “I have often used such a system of masked figures to give visual expression to the inner psychological state of the individuals concerned.“ “When we look on what he (Gluck) was trying to reform, it means simplicity. It means essentially getting rid of things“, explains conductor William Christie. His typically transparent but never cold orchestral sound perfectlymatches the descriptive elements in Gluck’s score, while the cast gives a winning and deeply-felt performance of the tragedy.
