Étienne Dupuis makes role debut as Orest in Paris Opera's Iphigénie en Tauride

Etienne Dupuis (Photo right © Guergana Damianova)

French Canadian barihunk Étienne Dupuis will open on December 2nd as Oreste in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride at the Palais Garnier. It will be his role debut. The production runs until Christmas Day and tickets are available online.

Director Krzysztof Warlikowski's production returns to the Paris Opera with Véronique Gens as Iphigénie, Stanislas de Barbeyrac as Pylade and Bertrand de Billy conducting.

Gluck's emotionally charged opera retells the Greek tragedy of Iphigénie, condemned to murder her own brother, Oreste, himself a murderer.

Gluck's 1779 opera took his operatic reform to its logical conclusion. The recitatives are shorter and they are récitatif accompagné (i.e. the strings and perhaps other instruments are playing, not just continuo accompaniment). The normal dance movements that one finds in the French tragédie en musique are almost entirely absent. The drama is ultimately based on the play Iphigenia in Tauris by the ancient Greek dramatist Euripides which deals with stories concerning the family of Agamemnon in the aftermath of the Trojan War.

A nude extra (left) & Etienne Dupuis and Veronique Gens

Upcoming performances for Dupuis include Albert in Massenet's Werther at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Pink in Another Brick in Bilodeau's The Wall at Opéra de Montréal and Jacques de Lusignan in Halévy's rarity La Reine de Chypre at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées