Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride, the summit of his reform of opera, plays the London Coliseum this November, sung in English by English National Opera.
English National Opera stages Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, the summit of his reform of opera, at the London Coliseum in Covent Garden from Friday 6 November 2026. It is sung in English.
Gluck spent his career stripping opera back. He thought the form had become a display case for singers, and that music should serve the drama instead of stopping it for applause. The reform operas carry no ornament for its own sake, and their recitative moves.
Iphigénie en Tauride, from 1779, was his fifth work for the Paris stage. Iphigenia, saved from her father’s knife at Aulis, is a priestess in Tauris, ordered to sacrifice every stranger who lands. Her brother Orestes arrives, pursued by furies for killing their mother, and neither recognises the other.
The opera runs to four acts with no subplot. In one famous scene Orestes sings that calm has returned to his heart while the orchestra beneath him says otherwise. Berlioz revered Gluck and championed this piece in particular.
The run ends on Saturday 14 November 2026 and alternates with Tosca in the same house. Gluck’s austerity and Puccini’s melodrama play on consecutive nights on one stage.