Opera Scotland

Iphigenia in Tauris 1996Pina Bausch Tanztheater, Wuppertal

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The cast of singers assembled for this production was highly impressive. However it was hardly an operatic performance, but rather a revival of one of the great Pina Bausch's early dance dramas, in which the singers were confined to the stage boxes, and sang in German. Much of the visual side was highly effective in a stylized, expressionist manner. The difficulty came from the sluggishly undramatic tempi of the music. This may have been due to the simple fact that the whole enterprise predated the modern movement to use faster speeds and a greater sense of urgency. Once the speed of the dancing and mime was established advances in musical taste could not be accommodated.

An altogether more satisfying impression of Bausch's work had been made at an earlier Festival that had seen her electrifying staging of The Rite of Spring.