Yes! Gluck wrote two separate operas about this extremely minor character from Greek mythology! They're both based on Euripides plays. Quick refresher in case you've forgotten: Iphigenia is Agamemnon's daughter whom Diana makes him sacrifice or else she won't let him go off to murder Trojans. So he does. Very edifying.
In Iphigénie en Tauride, the idea is that the goddess actually spirited her off to be her priestess rather than letting her be killed. Here...well, it's not that complicated: her dad doesn't want to sacrifice her but blah blah blah, Clytemnestra opposes this, and also in this version she and Achilles are in love (Deidamia apparently not existing in this continuity), and is he faithful to her, blah blah and also et cetera. In the end Diana appears and is all "kidding lol" (reminding me of the end of Idomeneo) so now everyone can be happy, except that Achilles is going to be killed in the war and Clytemnestra is ultimately going to murder Agamemnon. That stuff isn't specified by the text. I wonder how having another sister around would affect the plot of Elektra, or any of however many other plays and operas.
Not gonna lie: I found this a little on the boring side. The music is fine--and I think I can definitely see more clearly than I did in the past the intersection between the baroque and classical periods--but the drama I thought was extremely non-compelling, and--I noticed this in Iphigénie en Tauride also--it's just sooooo slooooow. I don't know; I suppose that's characteristic of baroque opera in general, but for whatever reason, it kind of got to me here.
The production may partly be to blame, too. I saw this one, which I think is the only available video. It's by Pierre Audi, who was also behind that stage version of Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder, and I think maybe I just don't like him. There's nothing terribly special here; it's just a vaguely modernized version with metal scaffolding and staircases on the sides of the stage. I feel it doesn't bring home the stakes of the drama very well, and--this will never not irritate me--in the latter part Iphigenia is wearing a suicide belt, and COME ON. You can't just stick such a charged signifier in there without a very damn good reason, which I don't think this remotely had. FAIL.
I'll definitely see Gluck's Alceste one of these days (his other oft-performed opera that I haven't seen), but I'm sort of on the fence right now about whether or not I really like him or not (or, perhaps more accurately, whether I like his librettists' sense of drama).
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