2 days until the Iphigénie premiere!

Director Stephen Wadsworth with members of the cast and production team

Susan Graham

Wadsworth and Plácido Domingo discussing a scene

Choreographer Daniel Pelzig with two of the dancers

The final scene of the opera

Photos: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

3 days to the Iphigénie premiere!

Is doesn’t happen very often that actors play a part in opera. (Pasha Selim in Mozart’s Entführung aus dem Serail is probably the best-known example.) In the Met’s Iphigénie, there are several non-singing roles that originally don’t appear in the score. Actress Jacqueline Antaramian plays Clytemnestre, the mother of Iphigénie and Oreste, who kills her husband Agamemnon and is herself killed by her son in the course of the events that precede the story of the opera. Gluck’s protagonists, haunted by their past, remember these events throughout the opera. “It’s all in the libretto, of course,” Antaramian says, coming from a rehearsal on Wednesday evening, “but modern audiences may not know their Greek history as well as people did when Gluck wrote it.” So director Stephen Wadsworth added her role and that of Agamemnon to his staging. “It works as a gentle reminder of the Oresteia saga,” Antaramian continues, talking about a scene she appears in, when Oreste is haunted by the Furies. “I think it’s brilliant what Stephen has thought of because it brings Oreste’s torment and everything he’s going through into a much more colorful light.” Another scene in Wadsworth’s production involves the story of how Iphigénie escaped death at the hands of her father. Agamemnon had been told by an oracle that he would have to sacrifice his daughter in order to lead the Greek fleet against Troy. “At the beginning of the opera,” Antaramian explains, “there’s a short pantomime where Clytemnestre is with Iphigénie. She’s very sorrowful, doesn’t know what to do, knows that Iphigenia’s death is coming. The father whisks her away, puts her on the altar, and against his better judgment kills her. And then, while the mother is grieving and arguing with the father, you see Diane come in and take Iphigénie away. It happens very fast, just to show the backstory that Iphigénie is remembering.”

For Antaramian, being part of this production is a dream come true. “This is the first opera I’m in,” she says, “and it’s a real gift to me, because I’m an opera fan. I actually studied classical music when I was younger. I never followed that dream, but followed my other dream as an actress, and now I’m bringing the two together like I never believed it would happen. Just to be on stage and to listen to the voices of Plácido and Susan and Paul, being only two feet away and getting to hear all these beautiful arias and duets, it’s so magnificent.”

The Russian Lesson

“Shagom Marsch”

The first rehearsal in the opera house on November 10 brought all of the supers together for the first time. Following a last-minute audition for more bodies to fill out the ranks we were divided up into four regiments (Grenadiers, Izmailovskys, Chasseurs, and Cossacks) of what will eventually be about 40 people each. When Irkin Gabitov, a stage director from St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre and an assistant director for this production, took over the rehearsal, it was like the first day in a Russian boot camp—at times exciting and at others humiliating. “Kru-gum!” Gabitov barked right off the bat, but only to be faced with a hundred blank stares. He frowns. Undeterred, he says again, but louder and more emphatically (obviously we are hard of hearing, otherwise we would have gotten it right), “Kru-gum!” and he snaps into a sharply executed about face. “Kru-gum!” and again and he was facing us with that stern look but with a hint of a smile. We got it, “Krugum!” and we all snap around more or less together. So far, so good. With “Shagom Marsch!” We are off marching about the large rehearsal room in our separate regiments. Over the next few hours, our Russian language skills, and our hearing, improved somewhat:
“Rav-nais!” (eyes left)
“Smirno!” (eyes right, and always sounding to me like “Smirnoff!”—sadly, it has nothing to do with vodka)
“Na pravo!” (right turn)
“Na levo!” (left turn)
“Na mesto!” (march in place)

The second rehearsal on the 14th of November picked up where we had left off the weekend before. At this rehearsal there were also 12 members of the Met Ballet who play the officers and flag-carriers for each regiment. Since they’ll be leading each group, hopes are high that we’ll have someone to follow. “Shagom Marsch,” and we are off around the room. All goes well until it is time to stop: “Stoy ras da!” (“Stop, right left”) and we come to a halt, eventually. Big frown from Gabitov, then in broken but very clear English he says: “Stop!, two steps, one, two.” We all try it again, and again. Almost perfect, but then when you don’t stop on time you get the look. Finally, he says “Five dollars.” I think to myself, “Huh?” As he walks off he says, ”Every mistake—five dollars.”