Iphigénie en Aulide: Greek Tragedy in the French style

The Brussels opera house (La Monnaie) is presenting Gluck’s two Iphigénies in tandem. On some days you can see both of them in one go, an evening of Wagnerian length; the two operas performed without intervals and a long break between. Or you can see them separately and I opted for the first of the two. The inspiration is more Racine than Euripides with a lengthy treatment of the love between Iphigeneia and Achilles which allows for the themes of obedience, duty, guilt and love in different forms to be developed. Achilles loves Iphigeneia and is prepared to defy the orders of Agamemenon for her sacrifice, but his duty compels him to obey his commander; Clytemnestra is conflicted between her love for daughter and her duty towards her husband; Iphigeneia herself loves her father even though he gives the order to sacrifice her under threat from the gods. Gluck’s through-composed music is serious and always pushes the momentum forward. It suits the tragic atmosphere well and is a highly suitable style for Greek tragedy with its combination of recitative, short arias and choruses. It has few great moments and is ultimately unmemorable but for the expression of dramatic scenes it is highly successful, especially when shaped and made urgent by the conductor Christophe Rousset, whose musical triumphs continue at the Monnaie after Semele. A strong cast, headed by Véronique Gens in the title role, conveyed the tension and conflict within their tragic characters. After Katie Mitchell’s staging of Euripides’ Iphigeneia in Aulis at the National Theatre in London recently this seemed restrained and cool, but the Racinean pacing of the events in this treatment develops into real tragic tension. Only the rather soppy happy ending detracts from the full horror of what we are capable of when put into impossible situations.

The main problem of this production lies in the staging and the director’s lack of appreciation for the audience in the theatre. Obviously the producer did not climb up to the balcony where I found my seat to check the sight-lines. I could only see half of the action and only part of the surtitles. Pierre Audi brought the stage over the orchestra pit, put the orchestra on the stage and placed the chorus behind them as a sort of reflection of the audience. (We are all spectators in this postmodern world; there are no hidden actions; all is there in front of us, we get the point). What he forgot is that the Monnaie is a traditional house where you can’t do this sort of thing without depriving the audience of most of what you want to show them. The seats which have poor enough lines of sight for conventional productions are designed to look at the stage not the pit. So we had a good view of the orchestra who we wanted to hear, and half a glimpse of the singers who we wanted to see. The staging would go well in a school hall or a gym or other improvised venue, but not in a traditional opera house which did after all commission the piece. It had “touring production” written all over it and will no doubt be sold all round Europe. But it shows contempt for its original audience. In addition I think the health and safety authorities should be called in to look at the tilt of the stairs which his singers had to negotiate their way down. I feared for the sopranos in their long dresses each time.

Vitruvius on architecture

Does anyone read Vitruvius today? Do architecture students have some familiarity with the basic text on architecture from the ancient world. Judging from the splendid new Penguin Classics (http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780141441689,00.html?strSrchSql=vitruvius*/On_Architecture_Vitruvius) translation of the ten books de architectura, perhaps they do. But does anyone read him in Latin? Our European Baccalaureate last year decided on Latin scientific writers as the set texts for the final examination, and so we have become familiar with this text, in fact for the first time. It is a much more entertaining read than may be imagined at first, and is far more than a dry technical analysis of building techniques. (Though in its own way that would still be pretty interesting.) He spends quite a long time telling stories about the origin of architectural features, and about the famous figures of science and technology. His is the story about Archimedes in his bath, and about Ctesibius and his mirror in his father’s barber shop (the origin of hydraulic pumps). He is also fascinating on the origin of the Caryatid figure on temple buildings, and on the origin of the Corinthian capital. A young girl died from disease and her nurse collected up her things and placed them by her tomb in a basket with a tile on top. By chance she put this basket over the root of an acanthus plant which sprouted in the spring shooting its foliage up around and through the basket. A passing artist, Callimachus, observed the pleasing shape of the different elements and decided it would look well as a new type of capital on top of a column.

Sometimes you have to read him with the illustrations to hand to see exactly what he means, but the modern editions are full of diagrams and sketches to make the text clear. Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Vitruvian man sketch seems just such an attempt: the meaning of the text becomes apparent when you see it rather than just read it.

The classic sections are those on the different orders of architecture, the styles of painting in houses and theatres and town planning. He is also good on astrology and how to defend a city from sieges. There is much more to him than just architecture: in fact architectus is not confined to the narrow sense of the word in modern languages. As a stylist, Vitruvius is not a Cicero or an Ovid, but he doesn’t pretend to be. He is trying to write clear plain Latin for other architects and engineers as well as a general readership to explain things that may have become lost if he hadn’t written them down. He does not deserve to be patronised in the way the translator of an online version of his work looks down on his Latin style. As an intermediate author he has a lot to offer students of Latin who are beginning on their exploration of authentic texts but who may still find the subtleties and complexities of the classic works a bit daunting.