Thomas Pütz

Zurich Opera House production of Franz Léhar's operetta, with Dagmar Schellenberger, Rodney Gilfry, and Ute Gfrerer in lead roles. Baron Zeta is desperate that the fabulously wealthy widow Hanna Glavari marry a Pontevedrian man so that her fortune remains in the country. He attempts to match her and his handsome attaché, Danilo. It turns out that Danilo and Hanna had had a love affair in years past. Nevertheless, Danilo now refuses to love her because he doesn't want to appear like he is only interested in her money...

The eighteenth century German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck strove for the ideal of pairing poetry - in its purest form - with operatic score, an end he came closest to achieving with his 1779 opera Iphigeneia in Tauris (Iphigénie en Tauride). The story recounts the nearly fatal brother-sister relationship, its ultimate reconciliation, and the eventual Scythian-Greek truce as achieved by the intervening hand of the goddess Diana. The home video release Iphigenie en Tauride contains a film of a live performance of the work, as mounted by the Opernhaus Zurich in 2001. Claus Guth directs for the stage, with a cast that includes Juliette Galstian as Iphigenia, Rodney Gilfry as Orestes and Martina Janková as Diana. The Zurich Opera's Orchestra La Scintilla and the Chorus of the Opernhaus Zurich provide musical accompaniment.