Video-on-Demand: Ifigenia in Aulide

The Greek army is gathered at Aulis, ready to sail for Troy, but the winds fail. The seer Calchas reveals that the goddess Artemis is angry and demands a sacrifice. King Agamemnon’s daughter, Ifigenia, must die for the fleet to depart. Torn between duty to Greece and love for his daughter, Agamemnon initially uses a ruse to bring Ifigenia to Aulis; he claims she is to marry Achilles. When Ifigenia and her mother Clitennestra arrive and learn the truth, they are devastated. What hero might intervene to save Ifigenia from the altar of sacrifice?

In 1718, the Venetian-born composer Antonio Caldara, while working as Vice-Kapellmeister to the Imperial Court in Vienna, composed his first setting of Ifigenia in Aulide to a libretto written by Apostolo Zeno. Following the fate of the Mycenaean princess Iphigenia, dictated by divine caprice, Caldara's style reveals itself in a magnificent yet psychologically penetrating way. Caldara’s work combines the virtuosity and expressiveness, the structure and counterpoint of the Viennese school influenced by Johann Joseph Fux, and the harmonic fantasy of Dresden court music, with which Caldara maintained close contact throughout his life. Under the Musical Direction of Ottavio Dantone, Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik’s production is the first staged performance of Ifigenia in Aulide in over 300 years. Appropriately enough for a ‘sacrificial drama’ where the gods pull the strings of human fate, this Ifigenia is staged by the Spanish company PerPoc, which integrates life-size puppets into their productions.

Recorded on 10.08.2025