Alceste
Music by Christoph Willibald Gluck · libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi · premiered 1767 · at Vienna
Alceste, Wq. 37 (the later French version is Wq. 44), is an opera by Christoph Willibald Gluck from 1767. The Italian libretto was written by Ranieri de' Calzabigi and based on the play Alcestis by Euripides. The premiere took place on 26 December 1767 at the Burgtheater in Vienna.
Text from the Wikipedia article "Alceste (Gluck)", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the Composer
Christoph Willibald Ritter von Gluck (; German: [ˈkʁɪstɔf ˈvɪlɪbalt ˈɡlʊk]; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire at the time, he gained prominence at the Habsburg court in Vienna. There he brought about the practical reform of opera's dramaturgical practices for which many intellectuals had been campaigning. With a series of radical new works in the 1760s, among them Orfeo ed Euridice and Alceste, he broke the stranglehold that Metastasian opera seria had enjoyed for much of the century. Gluck introduced more drama by using orchestral…
Text from the Wikipedia article "Christoph Willibald Gluck", licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Other Operas by Christoph Willibald Gluck
- Demofoonte (1743)
- Ipermestra (1744)
- La caduta de' giganti (1746)
- Ezio (1750)
- L'arbre enchanté (1752)
- La clemenza di Tito (1752)
- La danza (1755)
- Antigono (1756)