Graun: Iphigenia in Aulis (2CD)

The revival of previously unpublished works from Hamburg's musical history has been particularly popular with barockwerk hamburg for many years. Now the ensemble has recorded "Iphigenia in Aulis" by Carl Heinrich Graun based on the libretto 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 new interpretations in the theater to this day. At the age of just 24, Carl Heinrich Graun was also fascinated by the material and composed "Iphigenia in Aulis" 290 years ago. His youthful, fresh and colorful music was last heard on the stage of Hamburg's Gänsemarkt Opera in 1731. At the heart of the work is Iphigenia's voluntary and selfless sacrifice in times of social crisis. Paternal 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. The music for all the recitatives and several other movements is missing in the surviving manuscripts. But with the highly inspired music for 35 arias and the overture, the archives still contain a treasure trove that is enthusiastically and virtuosically brought to life here - with short interludes explaining the plot.