We saw Iphigénie en Tauride last Wednesday, and the curtain fell not only on the last opening of this season, but on the Pamela Rosenberg era. There are still three more performances of Iphigénie to attend (including one tonight; plus three Rosenkavalier and two Don Giovanni), so it’s not yet time to look back.

This season was the last that Rosenberg planned (before her successor at the helm, SF Opera general director David Gockley tweaked it a bit), and the operas on display during the short summer run totally reflected her taste and values: take excellent singers, and put them into sleek, modernized productions, to reveal something new about the opera they display. This got dubbed as Eurotrash by some of her critics, since it seems only European audiences do mind seeing the same play performed the same way every times, and expect to be challenged. The picture to the right gives you what’s going on right now at La Scala in Milan, and yes, that is Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac, Silvio Berlusconi and George W. Bush dancing in speedos in a see of oil.

So here, we get a sociopathic Don Giovanni reveling sensually in the blood he drew from killing the Commendatore. And we get an absolutely magnificent Iphigénie, a grim, epured, thoroughly contemporary telling of the tale, for the first ever production of this 1779 Gluck opera by the SF Opera.

Pictures of Iphigénie below, courtesy Terrence McCarthy/SF Opera. Picture above of Candide at Théâtre du Châtelet, by Marie-Noëlle Robert

The story of Iphigénie is as timeless as can be: it’s Greek mythology, with Iphigénie being stuck in Tauris as a priestess of the goddess Diana. She ended up there because her dad, Agamemnon, had decided to sacrifice her in order to gain the favors of the gods prior to launching the Trojan War. Diana pulled a switcheroo to save Iphigénie, but forgot to tell her mom, Clytmenestra, who pulled an O.J. Simpson on her husband (the comparison is not exactly accurate, since O.J. was a Trojan with a Swiss army knife, not a Greek with a machete, but oh well). Then Oreste, Iphigénie’s brother, like the next little sugar cube domino-ing down, avenged his dad by killing his mom. That’s before the opera starts.

This current production is not the one where Iphigénie lies on a couch while Dr. Freud takes notes. But one could understand that the atmosphere is too thick to cut with a knife. Ha. This is expressed here by a claustrophobic set which evokes a padded cell in a nut house, haunted with ghosts. The set is anthracite, and all the costumes black. No one has done more with so little than French director Jean Michel Criqui. Give him a piece of chalk, a sponge, a bucket of water, and a few butcher knives, and voila, he’ll give you two hours of arresting and meaningful stage direction.

Ghosts, we said: this production puts the choir in the pit, and replaced it onstage with silent dancers, choreographed by another French dude, Philippe Giraudeau. We are no Joan Acocella, but that was some gripping dancing. The dancers appear and disappear magically, through the perfect lighting of Robert Carsen and Peter Van Praet. You blink, and they’re gone. They are specters, haunting the dreams of Iphigénie, and even though it’s only dancing, and graceful dancing at that, it’s so powerful and conveys so much raw violence that it should be rated NC-17.

Then comes the singers: Susan Graham delivers an absolutely magnificent performance. Even in the silent prologue, her presence takes command of the stage, and never let go. Her mezzo voice fits the part like a glove, imparting nobility and charisma. Graham lets her voice crack down in the more climactic moments, turning her moral dilemma into a naked outburst of emotion which resonates with us. We only hope she won’t crash from running in a slippery poodle of water on the sleek stage, she almost did on Wednesday. She does take risks, though, both in her singing and acting, and we just harvest the rewards.

Iphigénie’s problem is that her brother, Oreste, has landed on her shores, and her duty as a priestess is to slaughter the prisoner. Oreste actually does not mind, still reeling from the guilt of killing mom. Oreste is Bo Skovhus, a Danish baritone whose physical voice matches his athletic posture. Oreste has been traveling with his friend Pylade, and Paul Groves tenor complements Skovhus’ voice for some lovely love duets, the baritone being more rough edged, and the tenor giving a tad less power and a bit more phrasing. Pylade pledges to “save Oreste or die in the attempt,” which reminded us of that movie poster we saw on our way to the opera: "live free or die hard." We told you it was timeless.

Those three do most of the singing, and the ensemble is just superb. The orchestra, led by Patrick Summers, an alumnus of the SF Opera Merola program, provides a varied backdrop to the singing, and some fine musicality in the interludes (even though we were caught up in the choreography that fills the interludes up, and paid more attention on the stage than in the pit).

Iphigénie en Tauride
SF Opera, War Memorial Opera House.
Box office: 864-3330
Performances: tonight, 8 pm, Tue. June 26, 8 pm and Fri. June 29, 8 pm.