Washington Classical Review

Kate Lindsey in the title role and Antony Walker conducting in Washington Concert Opera’s performance of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride Sunday at Lisner Auditorium. Photo: Caitlin Oldham

Washington Concert Opera opened its three-opera season with another admirable rarity, the original 1779 French version of Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride. This performance, heard Sunday evening at Lisner Auditorium, proved remarkable more for its subtlety than for the sheer vocal power of the casting, at least from my seat toward the back of the hall. This approach suited the composer’s reform-minded approach, seeking to return opera to its origins as a revival of ancient Greek tragedy.

Continuing from where Gluck’s previous opera Iphigénie en Aulide had left off, the goddess Diana has saved Iphigenia from being sacrificed by her father, Agamemnon. Made high priestess in Diana’s temple in Taurike, Iphigenia must preside over the sacrifice of her brother Orestes and his friend Pylades. Unnerved by visions of who the strangers are, she agrees to let one of them escape and cannot bring herself to kill Orestes, whom she eventually recognizes as her brother.

Mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey continued her championship of Gluck’s works with Concert Opera after starring in his Orphée in 2022. Gluck wrote this title role for a soprano: Patricia Racette sang Iphigénie when Washington National Opera mounted the opera in 2011. A mezzo-soprano comfortable with the high Gs and As can sing it, as Susan Graham did at the Metropolitan Opera. In fact, Lindsey was slated to sing the role at the Met in 2021, a production that ended up being canceled, so this performance officially is her role debut.

A gifted singing actress, Lindsey’s interpretation mined the score for its delicate shadings of emotion. Gluck, aiming to tie all aspects of his opera to the drama, wrote entirely accompanied recitatives and in only one scene in Act III has the singers actually overlap with one another in brief ensembles. Lindsey sang all of this material with flexible musicality, reserving her loudest moments for the top stretches in her big arias in Acts II and IV.

The high baritone role of Oreste suited the intense top range of Theo Hoffman, last heard with Concert Opera in their 2022 Lakmé. Having just performed the role earlier this month at the Opéra Comique in Paris, he sang without a score and his emotionally rich acting complemented the fervor of his voice.

Fran Daniel Laucerica matched Hoffman in emotional passion in this outing of the role of Pylade, also singing from memory. The young tenor added a note of dulcet sweetness to the character of Oreste’s devoted friend, forming a believable bond in what is essentially the opera’s most important love relationship.

As Thoas, the raging Scythian king, John Moore’s potent baritone gave an angry edge that contrasted nicely with the tender innocence of Lindsey’s Iphigénie. This angry vehemence felt of a piece with his interpretation of the title role in WNO’s production of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs this past spring.

The chorus of just 26 singers filled in the musical texture as fellow priestesses, exiled Greeks, and Scythians. Michael Ewans, in his book Opera from the Greek, has noted that “the recreation of a truly Greek chorus is one of the most remarkable aspects” of this opera. Chorus master David Hanlon’s coaching of this small but effective ensemble helped incorporate them into the drama. Their nasal-edge straight tone as the Furies, who still haunt Oreste’s dreams, proved a particular highlight, as did the funeral scene in Act II.

Singers from this group also filled out the opera’s comprimario roles, with an especially fine turn from soprano Erin Ridge as Diana, who appears at the end of the opera as dea ex machina, setting all right again.

Artistic director Antony Walker led a musically sensitive rendition of the complete score, including the two tiny ballet scenes composed by Gluck. Gluck refused to comply with the Parisian demand of a dramatically unrelated ballet divertissement, another aspect of his intended reform of the genre.

The classical-sized orchestra could unleash a wall of sound, as in the tempest scene that opens Act I, often overwhelming Lindsey’s Iphigénie. The eighteen string players played mostly senza vibrato, creating a distinctive sound, and an excellent assortment of brass and woodwinds added heft and poignancy at important moments. The lovely fortepiano built by Thomas and Barbara Wolf, positioned at the center of the orchestra and played by David Hanlon, over-dominated the texture in the storm scene but added wispy flourishes the rest of the time.

Gluck’s refusal to comply with operatic expectations, like having a big number with triumphant finish to signal the end of an act, meant that the audience did not always seem to know when to applaud, as at the end of Act I. Gluck would likely have been pleased. Even the notoriously critical writer Melchior Grimm wrote of the opera’s first run: “When I hear Iphigénie, I forget that I am at the opera; I believe that I am listening to a Greek tragedy.”

Emily Pogorelc, Will Liverman, and Duke Kim star in Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers 6 p.m. March 14, 2026 at Lisner Auditorium. concertopera.org